A Kinder Light
by Absolute Elsewhere
Summary: Ryan Hardy, Mike Weston and Max Hardy are all preparing for their first Christmas since Ryan's "death". Ryan is stalking an Organization operative, Mike is recovering from his wounds, Max has taken over one of Ryan's old cases, and Gwen is about to give birth, when a deadly new threat appears.
1. I'll Be Home For Christmas

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

NOTE: This chapter has been revised based on concrit provided by StopTalkingAtMe. Details in the chapter notes. Stop, thanks for everything, and may your Christmas wishes always come true.

Hi gang. Absolute Elsewhere here. I always wanted to write a Christmas fic for The Following, but I wasn't really sure how I wanted to go about it. I also wanted to do a fic that took place around the time that Ryan and Gwen's son was born. And then it occurred to me that their child must have been born late in the year. Maybe during the Holiday season., depending on when the events of S3 took place. So I realized that something hopeful would be taking place at the same time as something sad. Mike, Max, and Gwen would be facing their first Christmas without Ryan. And suddenly I knew that I had to write a fic about it.

But as anyone who knows me can tell you, nothing can ever be that simple. It may be the season of Peace on Earth, but it's still the Following. And as you'll see, the bad guys don't take Christmas off.

A Kinder Light

"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."

\- Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland

"Happiness is that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime"

\- The Marquis De Sade

"You are not your opinions. You are not their opinions either."

\- John Michael Greer

Chapter One - I'll Be Home For Christmas

The young man sat in front of a heavy workbench, intent on the laptop in front of him. Next to the laptop sat a phone in a case splattered with iridescent red, green, and turquoise glitter. It didn't look like a guy's phone, because it wasn't. It belonged to the dead girl lying on the workbench across the room. The young man connected the phone to the laptop with a cable, and waited as the driver software installed.

A second man sat down next to him, a can of Red Bull in his hand. He shook his head, as if in disbelief. "Hey Kyle," he said, when his friend did not look up from the laptop.

"What?" Kyle asked. "Not what you expected?"

"Oh, It's way better than I expected."

Kyle looked up from the laptop for a moment and saw that the look on his companion's pale, round, face was troubled. "So what's wrong?"

"It stinks down here. I mean, she pissed herself and everything."

"Well, yeah. That tends to happen when people are being tortured to death. And of course you've got the burned meat smell from the hot iron we used. It's normal. Reality is all five senses."

"So you get used to it?"

Kyle thought for a moment before answering. "No. You don't really want to get used to it. You want to savor it. It's like proof of what you did. Of what you took. And look at it this way. You gotta break some eggs to make that omelette. So it has to be painful. Slow. And a burn is the most extensive injury the human body can sustain and still function. I told you things would change for you. For the better. You're like me now. A made man, so to speak. You'll never look at things the same way again. And this is just the beginning. There's a whole journey ahead of you, and you're just starting out."

"I guess so," the second man replied. He looked at Kyle with a kind of longing, as if he felt conscious of his deficiencies. Kyle wore jeans and an untucked gray shirt with the top two buttons undone. Kyle's shirt was untucked to present a casual appearance, not to hide a belly that overhung his belt, and it made the second man conscious that his baggy sweatshirt was there to conceal a bit too much fat and too many empty carbs. Kyle's angular face and neatly trimmed dark brown hair made him more conscious of his own disheveled sandy brown mop. Why couldn't he carry off a better look?

He set his Red Bull down on the table and looked over at the dead girl lying on the work bench. Next to her sat a propane torch in a stand, along with a screwdriver, a few other metal tools, and a thick asbestos glove. He looked at his watch. "We can't dump her for a few hours."

"I know," Kyle said. "Just relax. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, and nobody's coming."

"You're sure? I can't believe you do this shit in your house."

"It's not really my house, you know. My Dad travels a lot on business, and he won't be back until tomorrow. And all of this will be cleaned up.

"The help never comes down here?"

"Never. Not even to clean. A little bleach and elbow grease and we'll be golden."

"And you're sure this is soundproofed?"

"Trust me."

"Why was it soundproofed?"

"The previous owners did it," Kyle explained. An impish grin appeared on his face. "Who knows? Maybe they were, like, serial killers and shit."

Red Bull gave a nervous laugh. "Wouldn't it be easier to move her if we cut her up?"

"Yeah, but we want her found in one piece. It's more dramatic that way. We need artistic, not gross. It's like..." He paused, searching for the right words. "We need to make a good impression."

"Because you only get one chance to make a first impression," the round faced man said, grinning

"Exactly," Kyle said, as he focused once more on the laptop. "We'll use that ladder over there for a stretcher, and clean it up with bleach after." He put his hand on the wireless computer mouse and began to move it around.

"You sure you wanna do this?" the second man asked. "Because once you do, it's gonna be on."

"That's the whole point," Kyle replied. "We have to make a splash. Cheer up, man. We're gonna be so famous."

"Yeah," his companion said thoughtfully.

"Remember, this carries over. Women are inherently attracted to dangerous guys. And you are now officially a killer. Truly, your life is about to change. For the better. Becoming dangerous transforms you. Now you can become their ultimate bad boy fantasy object."

"And for one of them, we become a target."

"Scared?" Kyle asked.

"No," second man replied. He paused for moment, and broke into a smile. "I'm actually kind of looking forward to it."

"Right." Kyle finished what he was doing and unhooked the girl's phone from his laptop. He handed the phone to his companion, who pressed the button on the side, and sat looking at the wallpaper, and nodded in approval. He handed the phone back to the first man. "There," he said. "All done. The game commences."

II

Gwen Carter put the finishing touches on the lunch she was preparing while light flurries drifted past the window and soft jazz played in the background. She'd thought about eating out, but with the remaining shopping days to Christmas relentless ticking down, the traffic would be miserable. Better to stay in and cook for her family, and that was how she had come to think of Max and Mike. They were family, and that family would be joined by her son in just a few days.

They'd helped her clean out and redecorate Ryan's old digs, which she'd kept after his death. She was going to need a larger place with an infant on the way, but some changes had been necessary. She was going to need a nursery, and they'd helped with that, and they had also helped with the Christmas decorations. These included an artificial tree with built in colored LEDs, and while there was no chimney to hang stockings by, the bookcase worked well enough. A tiny stocking for an unborn son was pinned between two larger ones for the late Ryan Hardy's niece and his best friend.

She heard the doorbell ring, and went to the peephole knowing who she'd see on the other side. From the look on Mike's face, she guessed she was about to hear good news.

By the time she got the door open, his look had gone from a half smile to an ear to ear grin. 'Come in," she said.

He stepped inside, and the moment the door was closed she hugged him. His jacket was still cold and damp from the weather outside.

"So how did your checkup go?" she asked, as he hung up his jacket.

"It's official. I go back on full duty at the end of January. I'm almost there."

"Congratulations. And I'm almost there too. He kicked a while ago. I think he's in even more of a hurry to get started than you are."

"Well, he'll get there first. Something smells good."

"Tomato basil soup," she explained. "Homemade. And curried chicken salad. No alcohol for me, I'm having sparkling mineral water , but there's a Sauvignon Blanc if you want some."

"Mineral water is fine. I'll help you set the table."

"So are you going back to work this afternoon?" Gwen asked as they sat down to eat.

"No, I'm playing hooky for the rest of the day. Christmas shopping. Not that I have that much to do. This is great, by the way."

"Thank you."

"So how are you holding up?"

"You know how it is ," she said, with a faint smile. "In fact, you of all people know how it is. Christmas doesn't suck. It just seems a little lonely this year."

"For me," Mike said, "last Christmas did officially suck. There was no one. I spent last Christmas in a hotel room in Brussels. I just said bah humbug on the whole thing. That was a mistake. Dad wouldn't want me to stop living. And neither would Ryan. I've got Max. I've got you, and I'm going to have a Godson. So whatever happens, I'm not giving up. Ever. Facing things alone when I didn't have to just made it worse."

"Speaking of making things worse, the Joe room, as Max likes to call it, is now cleaned all the way out and it's a nursery. I'll show it to you later. So you don't need to hurt yourself trying to move furniture. Again."

"Please. Max already gave me ten different kinds of hell about that. I'm a lot better now and I'm finally going to get back out there."

"She's going to have mixed feelings about that. You don't exactly have a great track record for staying healthy on the job."

"That's going to change," he said. "Because I've changed."

"How is Max?"

"You know Max. She's tough."

"She is. But that's not an answer."

"She struggles with it. I warned her that the first Christmas would be rough. Sometimes she has trouble sleeping. She drinks a little more than she did. I mean, she doesn't get drunk or anything, but..." he let the thought trail off.

"But what?"

He paused for a moment, staring into his soup bowl as if it contained answers instead of soup. "She asked for one of Ryan's old cases. One he was working last year, back before Mark Gray resurfaced. It was an organized crime case. There were these mob guys who were leaning on stock market analysts to write bogus reports. .They could use that to manipulate the prices of certain stocks. Well, there were a couple of analysts who refused to play ball. One weekend, they went on a fishing trip together and never came back. It never got solved. Ryan wasn't the only agent on that case, but he was lead agent for a while. She asked Dan Shelby for the case, and he approved it. From what I hear, she and this guy she's working with now are close to breaking it."

"Who's she working with now?"

"A guy named Dennis Fuchida," he explained. "He's good. He transferred here from Denver back when we were hunting for Theo. If I can't be there, at least I know that someone's going to have her back. So maybe they're finally going to get these guys."

"So that's good, right?"

"Yeah, it is, except that I found out that she also went over Ryan's case notes from the Strauss investigation. Theo Noble, too. She's been...I don't know. Pulling at the loose ends from Ryan's old cases. Of course there's nothing to find. But she's got the idea that maybe there was some chance that Ryan...that he survived. And it's impossible. When I found out that she was checking out those old case files, I talked to her about it."

"What did she say?"

"That there were no bodies, and a lot of loose ends."

"But those cases are all closed, right?"

"Yeah, except for Lisa Campbell's murder, and that's a cold case at this point."***

"Have you talked to her?" Gwen asked.

"Yeah. She says she's OK, but I worry. I think she's still burning a candle in the window for Ryan. Do you think I should talk to her about seeing someone?"

"That first Christmas is hard," Gwen said. "You already knew that, and I'm finding it out. Give her a little more time. Be there for her."

"I will," Mike said. "I am. Of course it would be a lot easier if I could actually be there right now. This mob case she's working sounds interesting, and I think she's going to be the one who finally nails these guys."

III

Warfield Import Export was located in a row of run down brick buildings on a two lane street in Brooklyn less than a block from the East River. It was identified only by a small sign on the door. A larger sign on the roll up door next to it read NO PARKING IN DRIVEWAY. The windows on the roll up door were frosted over. The occupants, apparently, liked their privacy.

A slender fiftyish man, his head shaved and sporting a few days growth of salt and pepper stubble walked up to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. He found himself in a small waiting room dominated by a large and vacant desk. There were a few chairs, and table with some newspapers and magazines, but he remained standing, waiting for one of the secretaries to appear in the window on the back wall.

A few seconds later, a brunette in her early thirties with a pageboy appeared in the window. "Mr Kelso," she said. "Good to see you. He's in the office."

"Thanks Maggie," Kelso replied. He opened a door to his right and found himself in a short hallway. He knocked on a closed door on the right. "Come in," a voice said. He stepped inside and found himself in a large office. A heavyset man with a thick shock of gray hair wearing an expensive suit was half sitting, half leaning on the two acre desk at the back of the room. Two other men sat in easy chairs.

"Sit down," the gray haired man said. "Take a load off. Whiskey?"

"Always," Kelso replied with a smile. He took a seat in a vacant easy chair while the gray haired man produced a bottle of rye whiskey from a liquor cabinet behind the desk. He poured a double into a glass, and handed it to Kelso. "Straight up as always," he said, and resumed his place on the front edge of his expansive desk, next to his own glass of whiskey.

"Thanks, Vince," Kelso said, and took a generous sip of the whiskey.

"You've met Jake, haven't you?" Vince said to Kelso.

"Yeah," Kelso replied. "In Atlantic City."

"So how was St Kitts?" Jake asked.

"A hell of a lot warmer than this place," Kelso replied. He took a sip of his whiskey before continuing. "I think we've got things pretty much straightened out. There was a screwup with the invoices, and I had to arrange a bill of sight to show the customs people."

"How much did that set us back?" Jake asked.

"Not much. Fifteen thou. But I'm tired of this sort of crap. Louis is slack."

"That he is," Vince agreed. "I think we might need to start looking for a new guy to handle his end of things. Meanwhile, we've been talking things over here, and Benny here has a few ideas. He's been talking to a guy in securities. Works for a major brokerage. Excellent track record, they say. Benny thinks we might be able to work something out."

"Who does he work for?" Kelso asked.

"Stryker Mutual. Benny thinks he'll be reasonable."

"I'd like to meet him," Kelso said.

"You will," Jake replied. "We can set something up this week."

The office door opened, and Maggie entered, looking a little flustered. Behind her were two strangers. One was an Asian man with short hair wearing a light gray business suit and red tie with a dark overcoat, gray scarf, and leather gloves. The other was a slender brunette with shoulder length hair and striking blue eyes. She wore an olive pantsuit, a pale

blue dress shirt, and a black hooded trench coat.

"I' m sorry sir," Maggie said. 'They insisted. They're..."

The woman produced a wallet and opened it to reveal a badge. "I'm Special Agent Max Hardy ," she said. "This is Special Agent Dennis Fuchida. We're with the FBI. May we come in?"

"Did you remember to bring your search warrant?" Vince asked irritably.

The two agents looked guiltily at each other. "We uh...we don't actually have one." Dennis said.

"Then you need to get the fuck out," Vince said.

"What he means," Max explained, "is that we did have one. But we don't anymore. And that's why we need to come in."

"What the fuck?" Jake asked.

"You see," Dennis said, "we had a search warrant to do a wiretap on this office. So we planted a bug. But the problem is we didn't get anything. You see, when we do get a warrant for a wiretap, it's only good for a limited time. That's to keep us from violating your civil rights. Well, the warrant has run out, and the court says we have to remove the bug. That's why we're here. To get our bug back."

"It'll only take a minute.," Max added.

"You bugged my office?" Vince asked.

"Well, we had to," Max explained. "We were investigating you."

"For what?"

"Racketeering," she said. "Export import fraud. Extortion. Money laundering. Stuff like that."

"Where's the goddam bug?" Vince asked.

"In the ceiling," Dennis replied, pointing.

"Well get it out of here. Now." he turned to Kelso. "Can you believe this shit?"

"How did you plant it?" Jake asked.

"We did a black bag job," Max replied. She turned to Dennis. "Can you give me a leg up?"

"Sure," Dennis said. He stood beneath the spot on the ceiling he had pointed at, laced his fingers together, and held his hands at waist height.

Max produced a small flashlight from her pocket, put her foot in his hands and stepped up. She lifted a ceiling tile and searched for a moment with the flashlight. "I've got it," she said. She pulled out a small black plastic square that fit easily into her palm, and stepped back down. "Done," she said. "Sorry about all of this."

"We really appreciate this," Dennis said. "We're financially responsible for these."

"Now get out," Vince said.

"Wait a minute." One of the men, who had remained silent so far, got up from his chair. He was short, broad, and even in a suit looked powerfully built. He had sandy brown hair that was starting to thin. "Are you really Max Hardy?"

"I really am," she said.

"I met your uncle," the man said.

"Yeah?"

"Too bad what happened to him. I mean, he was an OK guy. Even if he did try to bust me."

"Thanks," she said, breaking into a smile. "I'm sure it wasn't personal," she said. "Just business."

The man gave a short laugh that sounded like someone trying to unstop a toilet. "Yeah," he said. "Business." He looked sheepishly at his companions. "Before you go," he asked, "can I have your autograph?"

"Sure."

The man looked around for something for Max to sign. Vince rolled his eyes and then got a memo pad off of his desk and handed it to the man. "Here," he said with disgust. "Fuckin' hell." He offered the memo pad to Max, who took it and pulled a ballpoint from the inside pocket of her suit jacket.

"Who's this for?" she asked.

"Benny," the man said.

"For Benny," Max said, as she wrote. "It wasn't personal, it was just business." She signed her name with a flourish, handed him the memo pad, and put away the pen.

"Thanks," Benny said. He looked at the memo pad appreciatively.

"Are we through?" Vince asked. "Because if we are, you need to leave. Now."

"We're going," Dennis said. "And thanks. We're really sorry about this." They left, and Max flashed a brief, thousand watt smile at Benny on the way out the door.

" Jesus shit," Vince said. "Can you believe this?"

"Well at least it's gone," Jake said.

"Vince shook his head in disgust. "That's not the point. They bugged my office. It's like a fucking police state."

"They said they didn't get anything," Benny pointed out.

"Well you got something, at least, " Jake said. "You got her autograph."

" You sure they didn't get anything?" Kelso asked.

Jake took a sip of the whiskey that had been sitting in a small lamp table near his chair. "They removed the bug didn't they?"

"Yeah," Kelso said. "But how long has that fuckin' thing been there?"

Benny stuck the memo pad into his pocket. "I don't know. They didn't say when they planted it."

"That's the point," Kelso replied. "They didn't say. I mean, was that thing there week before last?'

"What if it was?" Benny asked.

"Well wasn't that when you guys were talking about getting rid of Sam?" Kelso asked.

"He's right," Jake said. "It was a week ago Thursday, remember? We found out he was skimming the skim. So what did we actually cover?"

Vince grew thoughtful. "We were gonna have Bill and Charlie pick him up," he recalled. "And take him to the docks at Carlin Marine. They were gonna cave his skull in and weight him down."

"And they did," Benny said.

"But they said they didn't get nothing," Vince argued.

"So they planted the bug after," Benny said. "They must have."

"How long is a warrant like that good for anyway?" Jake asked. "Maybe we should ask George. He's a lawyer, he'd know."

"It's probably not good for more than a few days," Kelso said. "I mean, if they didn't get anything, it must have been put there after, right?"

"Shit," Vince said. "We gotta stop planning rubouts in my office."

IV

The unmarked FBI surveillance van sat parked a block away, its motor off to avoid attracting attention. In the back, Max and Dennis sat listening to the men argue. Two other agents, John DiPaulo and Gary Burnworth, sat in front.

Dennis shook his head slowly, in apparent disbelief. On the speakers, Vince was explaining that there was no way the bug could have been there last month, since if had been they would already have been arrested for putting Al's body in that fucking Lincoln and compacting it. "Why can't it always be this easy?" Dennis asked.

"Well, I did practice ahead of time," Max replied. "I tried wrapping some gauze around my wrist, but that didn't really work too well, so I bought a compression sleeve for my left arm, and that held both bugs up under sleeve where I could get to them. I pulled them out while the guys couldn't see, and left one of the bugs in the ceiling."

"You could do a magic act," Dennis said. "The Amazing Max."

"You can be my assistant. Then we'll have something to fall back on if the Bureau ever chucks us out.." She paused to listen to Jake remind Benny that they'd talked about that manifest that Louis had dummied up last Friday, and the time they'd talked about having Ernie's's fucking arm broken. "And I was right that they'd fall for it and not check for a second bug," She added.

"You were."

"Which means you're buying the first round tonight."

"I'm buying the first round tonight," Dennis agreed. "But it was so worth it."

"We gonna take 'em now?" John asked from the front seat.

"No," Max replied. "Orders from Shelby. We'll do it later, because we're not supposed to get Kelso. Since he's an informant he'll quote unquote elude capture and disappear into witness protection. They're gonna work up a new identity for him, and I'll be delivering that to him before the actual bust. "

"Didn't Ryan work with Kelso at one point?" Dennis asked.

"Yeah," she said. "He was working an organized crime case when I first reported here from Quantico. That guy Benny was a suspect in the murder of a couple of stock analysts. But they were never able to nail him."

"So you're gonna clear one of his old cases finally," Dennis said. "He'd be proud of you."

"Well I did have a little help. " She sat silent for a moment, remembering. "Yeah. I think maybe he would be ."

V

Kelso drove slowly down a narrow one way street in Brooklyn, making his way carefully through the heavy traffic. Making allowances for the cars parked down the right hand side of the street, the road here was basically one lane. On the left side of the road was a five story office building, on the right a coffee shop, and next to it, a locksmith. He could see the man he was here to meet coming out of the coffee shop. Into the light snow that was falling outside.

Kelso slowed to a stop and rolled the window part way down as the man stepped to the curb. "Get in," he said.

The man did, Kelso resumed his slow progress down the crowded street. "So you're back in town," he said to his passenger.

Ryan Hardy smiled. "Like the song says, I'll be home for Christmas."

VI

The Criminal Division had staked a long standing claim on a warren of small offices and cubicles down the hall from the Command Center. Max made her way from the break room, a cup of coffee in her hand. On her way back to her desk, she passed the copy machines, where someone

had set up an artificial Christmas tree.

It was a cheap affair that bore little resemblance to bigger and much fuller tree that had been depicted on the box. The label had claimed it was four and half feet high. It might barely have cleared four. If Charlie Brown had gotten an artificial tree, Max thought, it would have looked just like this. It was lit with tiny permanent white lights, their electrical cords not hidden by the sparse green plastic boughs. A few colored balls hung from the branches. As she walked past, she noticed something else hanging from the branches as well. Something black in color. She paused, and looked more closely.

A black plastic bat hung from one of the tree's limbs. She did a double take and then examined it more closely. As she did, she noticed another, and then a third.

She shook her head in amazement and continued on her way. She stepped into the open office she shared with Dennis, John, Gary, Mike, and another agent named Jermain Waller. Dennis, John, and Gary were beavering away at paperwork. Jermain was out in the field, she wasn't sure exactly where, and Mike of course was gone for the day.

Three corner desks were placed down each side of the room. She and Dennis had adjacent desks on one side of the room, while Mike had the third desk on that side. Their chairs were placed so that she and Mike faced each other much of the time. John Gary, and Jermain had the opposite side of the room.

"There are bats," she announced. "In our Christmas tree."

In answer, Gary pointed wordlessly at Dennis, and then turned back to his computer screen. "I bought them back during Halloween," Dennis explained. "They're Christmas bats."

"Christmas bats?" she asked.

"Yeah. You don't know about the Christmas bats?"

"No, I don't. Tell me about the Christmas bats."

"Well," Dennis began, "most people think that Santa uses Rudolph to find his way in bad weather. But that's actually a myth. Santa uses Rudolph every year, but that's for air traffic safety. SO he doesn't get sucked up in the jet intake of a 747. You see, that red nose doesn't really provide enough light to navigate by. So in bad weather, Santa uses the Christmas bats. Because the bats have echo ranging."

She laughed out loud. "I work with a crazy person."

The phone on her desk buzzed for attention, and she picked it up. "Max Hardy."

"Come down to the Command Center. Bring Weston and Fuchida with you." She recognized the voice of her boss, Dan Shelby. He'd been brought in to replace Gina Mendez after Nick Donovan had gone back to Washington.

"Mike's gone for the day, sir," she replied. "He has a medical checkup. But Dennis is here."

"Well the two of you then."

"Yes sir."

VII

Dan Shelby was a rangy, fiftyish man with brown hair starting to show a hint of gray and glasses that made him look a bit like Clark Kent. Of course Clark Kent didn't have slightly crooked nose from a savage beating administered by a biker gang when he was working undercover in West Texas. He was looking over the shoulder of an olive skinned young woman at her computer monitor., which showed surveillance footage of Kelso walking into Warfield Import Export this morning. "Good job this morning," he said. "Now I got another one for you." He turned to the woman at the computer. "Show 'em"

The picture on the monitor changed to a woman in her early twenties with shoulder length blonde hair.

"We got a call from the Sheriff's Department in Picton County Connecticut," Shelby said, "requesting our help with a case. This is Melissa Canning.. She was a student at Marston University in New York. Early this morning, she was found dead in the woods near Magena Reservoir Since that's across state lines, it puts the Bureau on the playing field."

"Why us?" Dennis asked. "I mean, yeah, it's Federal, but it's also Connecticut Why not send someone from the Hartford Field Office? It's Connecticut, it's their turf."

"Because," Shelby replied, "The job sort of got addressed to us. Someone dumped her phone along with her body. There was a picture on it. Show 'em"

The woman clicked the mouse and the picture on the monitor changed. In place of Melissa Canning was a picture of a slender brunette with blue eyes. A CNN logo in the corner of the picture identified it as a screen grab. Across the lower part of the picture was a news crawl talking about an air strike in the Middle East. But Max and Dennis were instead focused on the words above it, which had clearly been added by whoever had done the screen grab. THIS IS NOT RESURRECTION, MAX. THIS IS YOUR LEGACY

"That was taken right after Ryan died," Max said. "I got interviewed on one of the talk shows."

"Looks like you got a fan somewhere," Shelby said. "Any idea what that might be?" he pointed at the screen. At the very bottom, below Max's picture and the message about her legacy were the letters EMHN.

"I don't know," she replied.

"You ever see that when you were working the Joe Caroll or Lily Gray cases?" Shelby asked.

"Never," she said.

"Well, you gotta figure it out. Because I don't think whoever did this is finished. Start packing."

"Yes sir," Max and Dennis said in unison.

Shelby turned and walked off in the direction of his office. "So we're going on a road trip," Dennis said.

Max stared at the picture of her on the screen for a moment before replying. "Yeah. I hear Connecticut's lovely this time of year."

Musical Interlude - The Devil's Back by The Pretty Reckless.

=================== Chapter Notes ===============

NOTE: This chapter was revised after the fact. An earlier version had Max and Dennis removing one of two bugs that had been planted earlier in a break in. A reviewer, StopTalkingAtMe pointed out that it was more satisfying if Max planted a bug, completely faking the bad guys out. Stop, as ususal was right. I wish to acknowledge her generous contribution. Stop has provided a lot of support and concrit over the course of my checkered career as a fanfic writer. In this case, she helped out with plot as well. Stop, thank you for everything.

*It seems totally inconceivable to me that Mike and Ryan wouldn't have kept in touch at all for a whole year. (Which becomes a plot point in my fic The Hunting Of Men). If they were in touch at all, it follows logically that the subject of Max would have come up at some point, and Ryan would have told Mike that she was seeing someone. In The Hunting Of Men, I have Max and Tom meeting in mid September of 2014, shortly after Max graduated from the FBI Academy and reported to work in the New York City Field Office. They may not have been seriously involved that entire time, but I'm assuming that they were by Christmas of 2014, and that Mike would have learned of it from Ryan. None of this is canon, but it seems a reasonable assumption.

** I did some research trying to estimate Mike's recovery time. Having him on limited duty in December may seem excessive, but given the extent and severity of his wounds it seems possible. Infection, in particular, will slow recovery time, and it's canon that he suffered an infection. There was also the possibility of postoperative infection that could have occurred after the series finale. Post op infections are a serious problem in hospitals these days, and they can be drug resistant. A good friend of mine got one that was literally life changing.

*** Readers of Terudom will recall me discussing this topic. We were never told the cause of Lisa Campbell's death, but she wasn't on life support and was well enough to carry on a conversation. It seems unlikely that Ryan could have concealed the fact that she was murdered. This wouldn't in itself cause the FBI to suspect that Ryan was alive. The world is full of crazy people, and as an FBI agent, she could have had enemies.

I used Google maps extensively in writing this fic. The places described are often real places, or close approximations of such, but place names have usually been altered.

The FBI has divisions that specialize in different types of cases. The Criminal Investigative Division is self explanatory. There are also divisions responsible for counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and cyber crime, among others.

16


	2. There's Never Just One Cockroach

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Chapter 2 - There's Never Just One Cockroach

Max walked into the bedroom closet and took from the shelf the Smith & Wesson 442 snubnose that she'd used as a backup gun sometimes during her NYPD days. She'd never got round to buying one of the baby Glocks on the Bureau's approved list for backup weapons. OK, so it was unauthorized, but what the hell. Ryan had gotten away with unauthorized enough times, and for all she knew she was being hunted. She found a box of hollow points, a couple of reloading strips, and an ankle holster, and threw them in a suitcase. If she got caught with it she might get written up. If she got caught without it, she might end up room temperature.

She was just zipping up the suitcase when she heard the apartment door open. Mike. She'd called him as soon as gotten her orders from Shelby. He had a right to know. But she'd been dreading this conversation, because Mike wasn't going to like taking no for an answer. She turned from the suitcase lying on the bed to find him standing in the bedroom door.

"I want to come with you," he said.

"Absolutely not."

"We can talk to Shelby."

"I already talked to him."

"And?"

"And I told him you'd want to come and the answer has to be no."

"I'm ready," he protested.

"Not according to the Doctor. I called him."

He started to argue, and she cut him off. "Mike, no. Just no. I wish you could come. But you've already hurt yourself once. I have been through way too much hell to watch you do that again. And someone has to be with Gwen. I want you to stay with her while I'm gone. This nut job could have looked up her address for all we know. If he has some kind of obsession with me, then he could target anyone in my life. So I want you to keep an eye on Gwen. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I thought we were done with this stuff."

"Me too," she replied. " Look, I know you're worried. That makes two of us. But we've been here before. And whoever this guy is, he is going down."

He pulled her into his arms. He'd known what the answer would be. After months of convalescing, he was so close to returning to full duty, and now he was going to be left behind while she went on the hunt. He held her close, enjoying the warmth of her face and the slight orange blossom scent of her shampoo, while feeling utterly useless.

"Just remember," he said, "Gwen's almost due. You're gonna be there, right?"

"Count on it."

He leaned in for a prolonged kiss. "Call me" he said.

"Every day. Promise. I gotta go." She threw on her coat and toboggan, grabbed her bags, and marched out the door.

II

Kelso and Ryan sat parked on the top level of a crowded deck, looking out over Brooklyn, watching a few light flurries drift down. Kelso left the engine idling for warmth. No one was moving around on the top level, and he could see the elevator and stairs about thirty feet away.

"I saw your niece," he said. "She's gonna bust Vince Warfield for the murder of Sam Craver. Got him on tape and everything."

"Warfield? Damn. I was after that guy forever. She's a chip off the old block."

"That she is. Well he's gonna be off the street. Me too, eventually. I'm hanging it up. Witness protection."

"The end of an era," Ryan said.

"You know how it is. Guys do business from inside witness protection all the time. I knew a guy who ran a meth lab from inside witness protection."

"You should quit while you're ahead," Ryan said.

"I could say the same thing about you. You're out. They think you're dead. You could go somewhere. Start over. Hell, you could even tell your family. They'd keep your secret. Your niece would understand. She'd never rat on you."

"She'd go after them."

"A chip off the old block," Kelso said. "You know, Max is OK. I feel bad sometimes, about what I did. I think if I'd known what you were planning that night I would have said no."

"Would you rather I'd died in the river? Or frozen to death in the woods?"

"I'd rather you'd lived, man. So what brings you back?"*

"Harvey Richmond."

"I know him. He ships hardware overseas for Uncle Sam. It's all perfectly legit."

"Some of it comes back here. That's not legit. Richmond handles shipping for weapons overseas to people the USA is supporting. Sometimes its governments, and sometimes it's private sector. Some of what he ships was bought in places like Libya so it doesn't have made in the USA stamped on it. Some of that hardware gets skimmed. Right off the top. AKs, ARs and worse. Some of it goes to the Organization. Richmond provides their heavy firepower. And some of it ends up on the street."

"And you know this because..."

"I got it from a a guy whose name was given to me by a former colleague. They were both reluctant to share."

"I can imagine," Kelso said. "So what do you want from me?"

"An introduction. I want to set up a buy. So I can take him out."

"I help you set up this buy, and what happens to me after?"

"You said it yourself," Ryan replied. . "Witness protection."

Kelso sat silent, not answering. "You owe me," Ryan said. "I took care of one of your competitors back in June. Remember?"

"You took care of him because you wanted to rip him off to support your crusade. So you were doing yourself a favor too."

"What's the problem?" Ryan asked. "You're going to disappear."

"You know what the problem is. They've got people inside the Bureau. We're not talking about the mob here. If these people suspect, they can track me down."

"So we make sure they don't suspect."

"He'll ask who you are," Kelso said. "And whatever cover you're using, he'll check it out, and it better damn well hold up."

"Victor Mallinson. I do some landscaping in Beaumont, North Carolina. I also do some gunsmithing on the side."

"Let me guess. The landscaping is so you can have an explanation for where you get your money."

"That's right," Ryan said

"Does Victor Mallinson have an FFL?"

"Yeah. Type 1." **

Kelso stared at Ryan, surprise evident in his face.

"What?" Ryan asked.

"You must have had some pretty good fake ID to navigate the paperwork."

"I did."

"Who are you buying for?"

"Does he care?"

"Yeah, man. He'll ask. No Islamics, no Mexicans. Islamics are too much political heat. They don't cover their tracks when they go Allahu Akbar. And Harv don't like Mexicans.."

"Some militia types, then."

Kelso sighed. "I'll see what I can do. It's bad enough that I helped you play dead. I'd feel even worse if I helped you commit suicide."

"You won't," Ryan assured him. "You're gonna put me on the road to going home."

III

Max loved helicopter rides, and like all of them, this one was all too brief. They'd taken off from La Guardia in a Bell 412 and crossed Long Island headed north. Max looked out across the cold water of Long Island Sound. Her seat was on the left, facing west. The late afternoon Sun, low in the sky, peered out from behind the partial cloud cover like the pupil of burning eye. She thought briefly of the eye of Sauron atop the Dark Tower. You weren't supposed to stare at the Sun, she knew, but it was a beautiful sight.

She could feel the helicopter descending and turned her attention to the shoreline ahead. It looked like a marsh, flat, level with several streams running through it. The snow covered only the parts of it that were relatively dry. Beyond it was Sikorsky Airport. Beside the runway was a row of hangars. A few light civil aircraft were parked outside.

They landed, and she got out, her bags in hand. Two cars were parked nearby. These would probably be their ride.

The drivers, a man and a woman, got out as she and Dennis approached. The woman, a tall brunette with mocha colored skin stepped forward. She had a clipboard under her arm. "I'm Kenya Welles," she said. "They said you needed transportation."

"Thanks," Max replied. "I'll sign." She held out her hand for the clipboard, and signed her name on the property responsibility statement for the car.

"Our SAC*** is hoping that you'll keep us in the loop," Kenya said.

"We will," Max assured her. "If it makes your SAC feel any better, I don't want to be here any more than she wants me here."

"It's not that," Kenya replied. "She's just hoping..."

"What?"

"That there won't be any trouble. This time."

"I'm not Ryan," Max replied, ice in her voice. "But no promises."

IV

They were headed down I 95 in a black Chevy SS, Dennis at the wheel. "Don't let it get to you," he said.

"It didn't get to me. Much. Sometimes I wonder."

"About?"

"After all this time, Ryan still casts a pretty long shadow. I wonder if I'll always be standing in it."

"Sometimes people just remember the bad stuff. They can be unfair. You think this is Strauss related?"

"I don't know. The man did leave a legacy. A gift that keeps on giving."

"Ryan left a legacy too, you know."

"Yeah." She looked out the window. The road had been ploughed and salted, but the landscape was covered with snow. "This is starting to feel familiar," she said.

"Like?"

"Kind of like the first time we ever met."

"I remember," Dennis said. "Yeah, maybe it kind of does."

V

 _Then_

Dennis had lost track of the number of times he'd been over Erin Sloane's case notes. The late Erin Sloane's notes, actually. Her murder was his first case since transferring to New York City from Denver. He'd been reluctant to go at first, since he'd liked Denver a lot, and wasn't sure how he'd feel about New York. But it was a promotion, and you went where the Bureau wanted you to go. It also helped that his supervisor had said that she hated losing him, but after busting that Chinese agent who was stealing information from some of the local tech companies, she figured it was just a matter of time.

"Maybe he was fucking her."

Dennis looked up from the file in front of him, and turned to John DiPaulo, sitting at the desk next to his. At the moment, it was just the two of them in the cubicle they shared. A couple of empty desks belonged to agents who were involved in the increasingly frantic search for Theo Noble.

"Excuse me?" Dennis asked.

"Just thinking out loud," John replied.

"You're doing something out loud, dude. If you want to call it thinking..."

"I'm just considering a hypothetical. She came to his apartment, and they had a quarrel."

"He was involved with someone. And as far as we know, she went there on business."

"Means nothing," John replied. "Maybe he liked to spin plates. Look, if the guy had something to hide, killing Sloane in his apartment wasn't exactly the best way to cover it up."

"Oh, he had something to hide. How do you think he ended up with a face full of acid?"

"It might not be related."

"It was related. This wasn't anything personal. Look, the guy had a rep. He was a hothead. He had anger management issues and a bad attitude. He had a probably bad shoot last year that never really got looked into. There were problems with his report on that raid on the Lockes' apartment. Sloane was looking into that. She must have found something. And if you're thinking of trying to protect the Bureau's image by making this out to be some kind of a lover's quarrel instead of a dirty agent, then don't go there."

"I wasn't going there," John said, irritation in his voice. "You think he went to meet those assholes looking for an out?"

Dennis thought for a moment. "It's possible. Strauss had an out, until it got blown. But that was Daisy Locke's out too. Why would he think she could set up an escape plan for him if she didn't have one herself?"

"The guy was desperate," John said. "He'd killed another agent. He ran to them hoping they could get him out."

"It depends on why he was dirty," Dennis said. "And for how long."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember your MICE****. There's four reasons why guys sell out. Money, ideology, compromise, and ego. This wasn't ideology. He had no beliefs in common with these people. It wasn't ego either. He wasn't proving how smart or important he was. That leaves money and compromise. They bought him, or they had something on him."

"They paid Juliana Barnes a hundred Gs."

"So if they paid off Reyes, where's the money?" Dennis asked.

"Offshore account, maybe. If they paid him off, it could explain why there was something hinky about his report on that raid. Sloane found something. He kills her. He goes to them looking for an out, and they waste him."

"It can't be that," Dennis said. "They didn't know that raid was going to happen, or they would have been long gone. Everything Reyes did was some combination of stupid, panicked, and impulsive. Whatever made him do what he did, it happened after the raid"

A short, heavyset man appeared at the door, clutching a thick folder in his hand. "Sorry to interrupt. I've got Max Hardy's notes. Donovan wants you to review them, since she worked with Sloane and you've got the Reyes case."

"Are we taking over her case load too?" John asked.

"I don't know," the man said. "You might be for a while, if Weston doesn't make it."

"Here," Dennis said, extending his hand. "I'll take it." He exchanged the file he had been reading for Max's notes, and began to read. He was still reading when they got the word that Ryan had gone off a bridge and was probably dead.

VI

Dennis walked up the river bank towards the end of the bridge Ryan had fallen from. He'd been here last night and had returned again this morning shortly after dawn. He'd slept for all of three hours. He and John had been walking along the riverbank looking for bodies or any evidence that might have washed up. He could hear a helicopter overhead. Probably law enforcement, but the news guys were buzzing around too. A boat with an outboard motor and POLICE painted on the side was dragging the river for bodies. Like everyone else there, he was cold, tired, miserable, and discouraged.

They reached the road. A knot of people in raid jackets were standing around talking. He recognized Nick Donovan in the center. A man in an FBI raid jacket was explaining to Donovan that the bodies might have been caught in a hydraulic current. Dennis wasn't sure what that was, and didn't really care. He paused to stare across the bridge while John trudged back towards their car.

He saw a woman, a slender brunette in jeans and a raid jacket standing in the middle of the bridge, gazing forlornly into the cold water below. He stared for a moment, thinking that she looked like...

"What the hell is she doing here?" Donovan demanded. "Who let her be here? Who?"

"She just showed up," a man's voice replied. Dennis turned to see that the impromptu meeting between Donovan and the agents had become a collective ass chewing.

"She has no business here," Donovan said angrily. "None. When she just showed she should have just been sent the hell back to the office. What the hell is wrong with you people? I'm not having her here when they pull Ryan's body out of the water. I'd ask what you were all thinking except that pretty obviously you don't. One way or another I will bring order to this menagerie that Gina Mendez ran, but for now..." He turned to Dennis. "You, come here.

"What's your name?" he asked as Dennis stepped forward.

"Dennis Fuchida, sir."

"Please go explain to Agent Hardy that she has to leave immediately. I'd like you give her a ride. She can go home, or she can go to the hospital, but she can't be here. Not now. Don't let her drive. I sure she's not in shape for it at the moment."

"Yes sir."

Dennis began walking towards Max, who had, he noted, left the railing and was headed towards him. "Hi," he said as they met. "Donovan said I should give you a ride."

"I heard," she replied. "So did people a mile downstream."

"Where are you parked?" Dennis asked.

"Just around that curve," she said, nodding in the direction of Donovan and the clump of agents around him.

'Let's go."

VII

They drove in silence until shortly after Dennis turned onto the highway. As he passed a lumbering delivery truck, Max suddenly started and sat bolt upright. He realized she'd fallen asleep.

"Sorry," she said, rubbing her eyes.

"It's OK. Go back to sleep if you want to."

"I didn't get your name."

" Dennis Fuchida. I just transferred here."

"From where?"

'Denver. I'm really sorry about Ryan. I hope..."

"Thanks."

"They gave me your notes," Dennis said. "So don't worry about anything. John and I have got it covered."

"There's no more case," she said dejectedly. "Not anymore. Just the cleanup. And I hope my notes weren't too much of a mess."

"They're not," he said, smiling. "Although..."

"Yes?"

"It said you were looking for a laptop. Ever find it?"

She shook her head. "No. I tried to pin it down, but I lost the signal. It was weird."

"How so?"

"The only location that I ever got on it looked like it was inside the building."

"That couldn't be right, then."

"No. That's why I didn't put it in the file with everything else. I was going to update all that stuff but there hasn't been much time for paperwork."

"It's OK," he said. " Forget about the paperwork, it's not going anywhere. Just take some time off."

"I don't have much vacation," she said. "And they don't give ..." she paused a moment. "Leave. For an uncle."

He realized she'd been about to say funeral.

VIII

After dropping Max off at the hospital, Dennis headed back to the office. Donovan hadn't ordered him to return immediately. John might be pissed, but he'd survive. If anyone asked, Dennis thought, he could tell them he'd stopped off for coffee, or to get dry clothes from his locker. But what he really wanted to do was check Tom Reyes' log. Where had he been the last few days? What had he been doing? It might not be complete or correct. Reyes had things to hide. But if he was right...

 _Yes._ Reyes was probably in the building at about the same times that Max, according to her notes, was hunting for the laptop. So what were the facts?

 _Fact: Daisy Locke bought a laptop_

 _Fact: No laptop was found in the apartment_

 _Fact: Erin Sloane was investigating discrepancies in Tom Reyes' report on the raid on Daisy's apartment._

 _Fact: Tom Reyes killed Erin Sloane_

 _Fact: Max Hardy thought she got a hit on the laptop from inside the FBI building during a time when Reyes was_ _probably also in the building._

 _Conclusion: Tom Reyes found that laptop the day of the raid, and kept it._

 _So where the mothering fuck is it? And why did he hang on to it?_

IX

Tom Reyes' apartment was still a crime scene, with yellow tape across the door. Dennis' FBI badge was enough to get the building manager to open it and then disappear. No laptop had been found in Tom's locker. They'd found his personal laptop in his car, and he and John had already been through it. Not with a fine tooth comb, but they'd checked his email, his social media, and Dennis was pretty sure Reyes hadn't copied whatever it was onto his own laptop. So what did he do with the stolen laptop?

He might have returned it to Daisy at their last meeting, and then they'd killed him. But he still could have made a copy somewhere, so that didn't make sense. And whatever their plan was, it had already gone off the rails by then. The laptop wasn't important to them anymore. He might have destroyed it, but whatever was on that laptop was hella important to this guy. There'd be something, somewhere. A flash drive. A portable hard drive. _Jesus, if it's cloud storage we may never find it._

It took forty-five minutes to find it. A slim little plastic bag with a zip closure, and a hard drive inside. He'd taken the hard drive out of the laptop. It was hidden under the foam liner of the hard case that came with Tom's Bureau issue Glock.*****

His phone rang. John. "Hey," he said. Sorry to take so long. I went back to the office to get some dry socks out of my locker. I..."

"So you're not still at the hospital," John interrupted.

"No, why?"

"Lisa Campbell has been murdered. Drop the coffee and donuts and meet me at the hospital. Donovan sent us, because he thought you might be closer to the scene."

"I'm on the way."

He hung up, pocketed the hard drive, and called the manager to lock the place back up. He replaced the yellow tape on the door, and left for the hospital.

X

Dennis stood before Max Hardy's apartment door, wishing he could be someplace else. There was a zippered nylon case in his left hand. With his right hand he reached for the doorbell, thinking as he did so that he'd crossed the line of no return He'd looked up her contact number and sent her a text. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT YOUR CASE NOTES. SORRY, BUT IT'S URGENT. She'd texted back and told him to come by late in the afternoon. She'd probably been in bed all day, sleeping for the first time in God knows how long.

Max opened the door, wearing jeans, a beige sweatshirt, and sneakers. Her hair was pinned up, and there were bags under her eyes. "Come in", she said.

He stepped into her apartment. "I'm really sorry about this," he said. "I'm not really here about the case notes. It's something else." he gestured at a coffee table. "May I?"

"Sure."

Dennis put the case on the coffee table and opened it, and removed the hard drive he'd found, a SATA cable, and his laptop. "There's something you need to see," he said. "And it's not going to be easy to watch."

XI

An hour later, the laptop, hard drive, and connecting cable had been joined by the cameras they had found hidden in Max's apartment, including one that fallen near a wall and gone unnoticed since there had been little time for Max to do housecleaning. Dennis sat in a chair near the coffee table. Max slumped on the couch, a numb expression on her face. She looked, Dennis thought, like she was imploding.

"So here's how it is," Dennis said. "You don't update those notes. You never tell anyone that you got a hit on that laptop. And you explain to Mike that it never happened. Because I haven't told anyone about this, and I never will."

She looked at him dumbly, as if not comprehending what she had just heard.

"Everyone's dead," Dennis explained. "And so is this case. There's no reason to put you through the shit storm that would follow if this got out. As far as anyone is concerned, Tom was a dirty agent. Maybe he was bought off. If they had something on him, no one has a clue what it was."

"Thank you." Her voice was shaky, as if she were about to cry.

"I'm sorry that any of this ever happened, and I'm sorry about Ryan. For whatever it's worth, I think you dodged a bullet."

"I don't understand."

"He would have killed you. Sooner or later. This was eating away at him. He was just working up to it. People who are stupid in a really dangerous kind of way sometimes have one last bite left in them, and that one can be the worst. Eventually he would have confronted you about it, and what was he going to say? That he'd tampered with evidence and faked a report? He killed Sloane to keep that secret. He would have killed you too. I know this isn't easy to hear. I'm not your judge, but he wasn't the man you thought he was. That anyone thought he was.

"What I don't understand," Dennis continued, "is why. What were they planning?"

Max shook her head, and sat silently for a moment. Suddenly she sat up.

"What?" Dennis asked.

"They were going to kill me." Max replied. "Tom too, probably."

"I don't get it. Why did they need this to kill you? They obviously had access to your apartment."

"You have to understand that behind all of this was Strauss. He was the guy pulling the strings, and he was gonna walk out of that courthouse free as a bird. So if they were going have me killed, they needed a fall guy. That's why they brought in Mark Gray."

"I'm not following you."

"Gray was there to kill Mike. What if they killed me and planted that laptop in Mike's apartment after everyone was dead? Or maybe put that stuff on his computer."

"Plant it how?"

"This took the code to my alarm. If they could get the code to my alarm they could get the code to his."

"So catching you and Mike was what? A coincidence?"

"I think so. They wanted to get me and Tom."

"And afterwards they traced the laptop the same way you tried to."

"Yeah, but they beat me to it, and got to Tom. Are you sure no one knew you were looking for this?"

"Positive," Dennis said. "After I dropped you off I went straight to the office, and then Tom's place."

"Why didn't you tell anyone when you found it?"

"I was going to," Dennis replied. "But while I was at Tom's place I got a call. Lisa Campbell was murdered."

"When?"

"Probably while you were still there. Someone broke her neck. No witnesses. Whoever did it was a ghost. So I decided to sit on that hard drive until I had a look at it."

"I don't understand."

"Because I had no idea what was on it. And I wondered if there might have been a link between Tom and Lisa Campbell. If Tom was dirty, then who else was? There's never just one cockroach. Maybe Ryan and Lisa found something. Or maybe she was dirty and they were eliminating potential witnesses. If someone wasted Campbell because she knew too much, they might just come for me. So I wanted to see whatever it was Tom was hiding before anyone else did."

The ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Thank you. Thank you for everything."

"You're welcome."

"Let me ask you something," she said. "How are you getting along with John?"

"He's OK. Well, mostly. He's uh..."

"He's John."

"Yeah."

"Mike's looking at a long hard road. And with Sloane gone, I'm going to need a new partner. At least until Mike gets back. You want the job?"

"You think Donovan would go for it?"

"He might. And if he won't, well, he's probably temporary anyway."

"OK, then. Partners." He held out his hand, and Max shook it. "I better be going," he said. "I'll leave that thing here. You can run a burn program on it, or just use a blowtorch."

Afterwards, when Dennis was gone, Max sat back down on the couch and clutched a pillow to her chest, letting it all sink in. Moments later, she curled up on the couch, sobbing uncontrollably.

XII

 _Now_

Max stared out the window of the Chevy. Two Highway Patrol cars had pulled over a battered looking brown Lincoln and gotten two men out of it. An SUV with K9 Unit on the side was pulling in behind the State Troopers. Drug bust, she thought, remembering how miserably cold it could get in the winter when she was a patrol officer in the NYPD, and she had to get out of her nice warm police car to deal with the stupidity and evil that people could inflict on one another.

"It was a long time before I told Mike," she said. "I didn't want to upset him. Not when he was fighting to get home."

"When did you tell him?"

"The day he came home from the hospital."

"How did he take it?"

"It was weird. He hardly reacted at the time. It was a lot to take in, on top of everything else. It was like he was numb. One more thing that hurt on top of everything else. He went through a lot of pain, and not all of it was physical. I know he never spoke to you about it. But he really appreciates what you did."

"I know he does," Dennis said.

The GPS announced their exit.

XIII

The Sheriff's Department was located in downtown Picton, surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings and a hotel, and on the fourth side by a diner, a bank, and a bail bondsman. It was a two story building surrounded by parked patrol cars with a three story parking deck behind it, and beyond that a blocky, six story brick building with a elaborate seal on the front and large sign that proclaimed it to be the Superior Court of Picton County.

They showed their badges to a receptionist and sat on a comfortable couch in a well appointed waiting room. Apparently even the FBI couldn't just walk into the offices of the Picton County Sheriff's Department, and apparently the Department could afford good furniture.

A black man with a moustache, close cropped hair a noticeable paunch entered from door next to the receptionist's window. "I'm Sergeant Welford, he said. "I'm sorry you had to wait. You must be Max Hardy."

"I must be," Max replied. "This is Dennis Fuchida. I'd like to start with the crime scene photos."

XIV

"There was a local woman out walking her dog near the reservoir," Welford said. " She found the body. She was dumped just off South Haven Road. Here, I can show you."

Max and Dennis were sitting in front of a computer on Welford's desk in the Criminal Division office on the second floor. A couple of detectives were sitting nearby, taking the conversation in. Welford, who had pulled up a chair next to Max, turned to a monitor on a nearby desk and called up a map program. A road map appeared on the screen. It showed Magena reservoir as a narrow blue oval runing north to south. South Haven ran parallel to it along part of the eastern shore.

"There's some really expensive homes in this area," Welford continued. "In fact, some of these roads are private. Including the part of South Haven north of about here." He moved the mouse cursor to indicate a point near the reservoir. The road runs north from here a short distance and then dead ends. Now there's a cable stretched across the road, and a couple of orange traffic barrels. It wouldn't have been hard for the killer to get that cable out of the way and then put it back. It's not meant to be really secure.

"We think whoever it was dumped the body before daylight. This road hadn't been ploughed above the cable barrier, and he left tire tracks." He called up pictures of a narrow, snow covered road through a heavily wooded area. "Pretty brazen, as you see. Here..." he pointed at the screen, "you can see a trail where he dragged that sleeping bag to the treeline."

"There's houses along this road," Dennis said, pointing at the screen. "What about street surveillance or traffic cams?"

"There aren't any."

"Witnesses?" Dennis asked.

"No one saw anything. A Ms Latimer found the body while she was out walking her dog. She lives nearby. She wasn't far rom the road, and she was zipped up in an insulated sleeping bag, along with her phone. She was nude."

"Cause of death?" Max asked.

'Strangulation, following what was likely very prolonged torture. It could have gone on for a long time. Burns, mostly. Second to fourth degree, probably with a heated piece of metal. Maybe some of it with a blowtorch." He called up some pictures on the monitor, and Max, who thought herself inured to horror, felt her gorge rise.

"Raped?" Dennis asked.

"No. She'd been bound at wrists and ankles with nylon rope. We have fiber samples of that. We're still waiting for the tox report."

"Time of death," Max said, making it sound more like an order than a question.

"Hard to nail down. The body would cool rapidly in the cold. Probably within eighteen hours of the time she was found, but it could have been longer."

"This was a sizable vehicle," Dennis observed.

"Yeah, we think an SUV. Those are truck tires, but we don't think it was a pickup."

"Jeep maybe," Dennis said. "Or a land rover."

Max reached for the mouse, and began clicking rapidly through the pictures."Ok, so he pulled off the road, he got out, he opened the back gate or whatever, and pulled put the bag. He dragged it to the treeline. He walks back. So when he dragged the body, it covered over his tracks. There's one set of tracks coming back."

She turned to Dennis. "Those tracks don't go all the way to the road."

"Yeah, but it looks like he did a road turn here. "He'd have to, it's a dead end road."

"Maybe," Max replied. "Or maybe he got in on the passenger side." A humorless smile crossed her face and vanished. "There's never just one cockroach."

Musical Interlude - Come Near Me by Massive Attack featuring Ghostpoet

===================Chapter Notes==================

* A word about what Ryan and Kelso are discussing. Readers of Terudom know my views on Ryan's survival at the end of the series finale. Those are found in their entirety in the Chapter notes to Terudom Chapter 10, Whatever Time we Have. Rather than go through it all again, I will simply say here that Ryan could have gotten to the hospital if and only if he had called someone. He could not have walked, hitchhiked, or used public transportation. He must have gotten a ride from someone he knew. My assumption is that he made that call while on the way back to New York City after escaping from Theo and Eliza, probably from a men's room since he cold not have discussed his plans in front of Max. His original plan, whatever it was, must have changed when he went off the bridge, but his phone survived and he made a second call to the same person he had already alerted.

** FFL is short for Federal Firearms License, which is needed to sell guns commercially in America. There are eleven different types of FFL, and I won't try to explain them all. Type 1 covers a basic gun store, or a gunsmith who works on and repairs guns. Other types include manufacture of guns and ammunition, pawnbrokers who deal in guns, and importers.

*** Special Agent in Charge. An FBI field office is normally headed by a SAC.

**** Sometimes rendered as Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego, as in they're open to coercion because they've been compromised somehow. I've seen this saying attributed to a former Soviet KGB spymaster named Sergey Kondrashev, but that may be apocryphal.

***** For those who do not know, when you buy a handgun in a gun store, it comes in a lockable hard plastic case so that you can secure it against any children that may be in your home, and so that you can store and transport it safely.. Some guns come with a lock included for the case. If you have a gun that for whatever reason doesn't have a lock and a case with it, then you can buy locks and hard cases separately. Remember that if a child gets hold of your gun, it can result in a tragedy, and can subject you to severe civil and criminal penalties. So take appropriate precautions.

 _About That Laptop_

Right down to the end of S3 and the show, no one ever confronted anyone about the laptop or Max cheating on Tom. The whole thing was essentially filler. Max never learned, before the end of the show, that her privacy had been violated in a really nasty way, and never got to confront anyone about it. I always regarded the laptop storyline as an exercise in cheating the audience. I've tried here to extrapolate some sort of more satisfying resolution to that storyline.

Given the risks that Tom took to keep the laptop, which included falsifying a report, it seems reasonable to assume that he would have tried to keep at least the hard drive after he destroyed the computer itself. Since Tom, like nearly all supporting characters on The Following, was doomed, we cannot know what he would eventually have done. Perhaps he did not know himself. The showrunners chose not to answer the question, so Dennis' opinion is only Dennis' opinion, and no one is obligated to accept it.

18


	3. Maybe We Get A Reality Show

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Chapter 3 - Maybe We Get A Reality Show

"We're foreigners," Kyle said as he drove his silver BMW 3 Series down Brooklyn's 3rd Avenue past a halal market. "Strangers in a strange land, condemned to wander through a world we didn't make."

"You mean the market?" his companion asked. From the passenger seat as he scrolled down his phone. "Or life in general?" The passenger was a big, ill kempt with brown hair. It was the sort of shaggy hair and scraggly beard you might find on a homeless person, but he was considerably better fed than a homeless person, and homeless people weren't likely to have a high end iphone like his unless they'd mugged someone for it and were about to sell it to buy a bottle of malt liquor.

"Both. But yeah, the raghead market. They take down the Towers and we invite more of them in. Before you know it the women will have to wear veils. Serves the bitches right."

"So who's this guy we're meeting?" the passenger asked, without looking up.

" Devin Tucker. He started out calling himself Colonel Krag online. That's with a K, like the rifle. He's a prospective recruit. So this is the interview."

"I'll watch your back," the passenger said without Looking up. "Are you worried he might not be who he says he is?" Focused as he was on his phone, he didn't see the look of amusement on the driver's face at the thought of depending on his passenger to protect him.

"I appreciate the offer," Kyle replied, unable to keep the irony entirely out of his voice. "Mostly, though, you're there to reassure him. You see, one guy alone could be just one guy alone. Two guys is a group. You'll be a kind of social proof. I think he needs that. He seemed nervous when we talked online."

"When's your Dad coming back?"

"He's back already."

"You're sure you took care of everything? After you guys killed that bitch right there in the basement of your Dad's house, I mean. You do that often?"

"There's a first time for everything."

The passenger looked at Kyle for a moment as if uncertain whether or not he was being made fun of. "They found the body," he said.

"I know"

"They didn't say whether they assigned Max Hardy to the case."

"They sent her," Kyle said confidently. "And if they didn't, she'll turn up anyway."

"How do you know?"

"Because Ryan would have."

"So why Max Hardy?" the passenger asked.

"To quote the great Khan Noonien Singh, 'She tasks me. She tasks me, and I shall have her'".

"Actually, all of Khan's really good lines in that movie were cribbed from Moby Dick. And things didn't work out so good for Khan. Or Ahab."

II

The stretch of 3rd Avenue where The Three Wiseguys Bar was located was rows of small shops in well kept brick buildings. This part of Bay Ridge was Brooklyn like it looked in old postcards, but there weren't Arabic speakers or halal markets in the old postcards. On the outside, The Three Wiseguys sported white Christmas lights in the window and a wreath on the door. Inside it was all dark wood and stained glass, and Devil Doll was singing Bourbon In Your Eyes over the speakers.

Sitting alone at a table in the back room was a round faced man in his early twenties with dark brown hair cut in a fringe up style wearing a plaid shirt that looked like it might have belonged to a lumberjack a size or two larger than the man now wearing it.

"There he is," the first man said. As they walked up the table, the man sitting there eyed them suspiciously, and kept his hand on his glass of beer as if he was afraid someone might make off with it.

"Devin Tucker?" Kyle asked.

"That's me."

"I'm Kyle Richmond. This," he said gesturing towards his friend, "is Russell Goers. May we sit down?"

"Of course."

They sat, a waitress appeared to take their orders, and Kyle sent her to get beers for himself and Russell. "So you're the guy behind Ellion," Devin said, when the waitress had gone.

"I'm the guy," Kyle said. "But we don't use that name in public. So tell us your story, and we'll see if you're ready to join the brotherhood."

III

Harvey Richmond lived in a Tudor stye house built to resemble an English manor. It was at the end of a meandering road that led off of another meandering road that snaked through the wooded Connecticut panhandle. Harvey enjoyed the kind of privacy that, in this expensive real estate, took real money to achieve. Harvey's home was his castle, and it might as well have been surrounded by a moat.

He had just returned from a business trip to Virginia that had lasted three days. As he pulled his metallic gray Range Rover Sport into the three car garage, Harvey could see that had the place to himself. His son's BMW was nowhere to be seen. Harvey didn't know where Kyle was, and he found, as he looked around the mostly empty garage, that he didn't much care. At 24, Kyle was an adult legally, even if he showed little sign of becoming an adult emotionally or financially. He had a place of his own when he was in grad school, which he currently was not. He might be with his friends, but even is he was at home, it would make little practical difference. When he was home, Kyle seemed to spend every available minute online.

He retrieved his briefcase from the back seat of the Range Rover and turned towards the door at the far side of the garage that led to the utility room and from there to the family room beyond. As he did, he noticed the ladder.

To the left of the utility room door was a staircase leading down to the basement. Next to it, a ladder was propped against the wall. He thought it had been further from the staircase before. Curious, he walked over and examined it. That damned fool Gus. He'd had the ladder out for some reason, and then put it back without making sure the safety latches were engaged. Pick it up like that and you could do yourself an injury when one section of the ladder slid down and caught your fingers. Harvey made a mental note to speak to Gus about his carelessness and stepped through the door to the main part of the house.

As he stepped into the family room, Harvey heard the sound of the vacuum cleaner coming from the direction of the dining room. Jaunita was working awfully late. He went into the foyer to hang his coat and then wandered through the kitchen to find Juanita vacuuming a nook with windows oon three sides that gave a splendid view of the back yard and the woods beyond that blocked out any sight of the next street over. Harvey liked his privacy.

Juanita turned the vacuum cleaner off when she saw him enter. 'Welcome back, sir," she said.

"Thank you. You're working late."

"I was at school part of the day, sir. Meeting with Gil's teacher."

"How is Gil?"

"He's doing well, sir. He's looking forward to Christmas break."

"I'm sure. What was Gustavo doing here?"

"I don't believe he's been here, sir."

"You sure? It looked like someone had the ladder out. I thought maybe he'd been by to work on something."

"I don't think so. Unless Kyle called him, and he hasn't mentioned anything."

"If anything was wrong with the house, I seriously doubt Kyle would even notice it, unless whatever it was fell on him while he was online."

"Can I get you anything, Sir?"

"No thank you. I got hungry and ate on the way here. I might make myself a drink, though. It's late. Why don't you go home? This will keep."

The house had four bedrooms upstairs. Two guest bedrooms sat more or less permanently empty. Kyle's room was usually empty, except for the relatively rare times that Kyle was using it. The largest room upstairs was a combination library and office over the garage. Harvey wasn't much of a reader, but it was his favorite room. Most of the books had come from a used book store with a massive collection of rare and antique books that had gone out of business. Harvey had bought up their inventory for a song, and although he never had time to actually read he was proud of owning them, and sometimes told himself that he'd have time to enjoy his collection one day. He went to the liquor cabinet poured himself a glass of single malt, and sat down at the desk to go over some paperwork he'd brought home with him.

He was less than a quarter of the way through the paperwork and halfway through the whiskey in his glass when his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen. Kelso.

"Hey there," he said as he connected. "Haven't heard from you in a while."

"Hope I'm not calling too late," Kelso replied.

"Not really. Actually I'm working kind of late. What's on your mind?"

"I'd like to get together for lunch, or maybe drinks. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

'What sort of a someone?" Harvey asked.

"Somebody in the hardware business," Kelso said. "He's had trouble with his suppliers, and he's looking for a reliable wholesaler."

"You know this guy?"

"Yeah," Kelso assured him. "We've done business a lot."

"If you think he's OK, then maybe I could squeeze you in tomorrow afternoon. Can you be at the Meridian at one o'clock?"

"Sure, that would be great.. I'll see you there."

Harvey disconnected and took another sip of his Scotch. He picked up the stack of papers in front of him, organized them into a somewhat neater stack, which he shoved into a folder on his desk.

He walked over to one of the bookshelves and pressed a button concealed on the underside of a shelf that released a latch. A section of books that was actually a hidden panel swung down to reveal a safe. He spun the combination, opened it, and took out a bracelet. Although the safe held two false passports and $25,000 in cash among other valuables, this was the single most valuable item within.

He thought about the last party he had been to at the House. His victim that night had been a young man of about nineteen who had made the mistake of trustung the wrong coyote to get him across the border from Mexico illegally. The coyote had taken his money, betrayed him, and sold him to the human traffickers who supplied the House with victims. The young man had spoken no English, but his pleas for mercy were easy enough to understand. Within the walls of the House, pleas for mercy were a kind of universal language, but they were never granted.

The Organization had granted Harvey full membership in exchange for his ability to supply them with untraceable weapons. All organized crime has violence as the ultimate arbiter of disputes. On the scale at which the Organization operated, the violence had to be very well organized indeed, and it often required military grade firepower.

Harvey thought longingly back on his kill that night. Hopefully he'd be hearing soon about when the next event would take place. He replaced the bracelet, closed up the safe, drained the rest of his glass in one gulp, and headed for the master bedroom. It was late, and he'd been hours on the road and in the air. Time to turn in.

He did not notice the tiny camera over the door, hidden inside a garland of fake holly that draped over and around the top of the door frame that had recorded the opening and the closing of the safe.

IV

The town of Esher's Ferry was lit up for Christmas, with strings of white lights strung across the main roads downtown, wrapped around light poles, and draped on a few large trees that grew in the traffic median. Some of the stores were still open for Christmas shoppers, and a hopeful bell ringer manned a small red pot outside a shopping center at the edge of town. But Max's mood was anything but festive. She stared glumly at the piles of dirty snow along the side of the road, haunted by the ghosts of serial killers past, thinking of serial killers present, and dreading the appearance of serial killers yet to come.

"Did they say who's meeting us?" Dennis asked.

She didn't answer, and continued to stare out the window. "Ground control to Major Max," Dennis said.

"Sorry," she said. "Just thinking. The guy's name is Moffet. He runs the campus police. He's supposed to be meeting us at her apartment. They said he'd have a key to her place if no one was home."

"Helpful of them."

"Yeah, well, they acted kind of weird. They said her roommate called and reported that she was missing, or at least that no one had seen her in a while. It was less than 48 hours, so there was no actual missing persons report. They're all fired up to help, but I have a feeling they didn't take that report too seriously then, and that's why they're being so helpful now."

Her phone rang and she took it out of her coat pocket to check the screen. Mike. "Hey," she said, as she connected. "Good to hear from you."

"Same here," Mike replied. "I called to tell you that I packed some bags, and I'm moved in with Gwen for a while. If I can't be with you, then at least I can stay with her. I'm sleeping on the couch."

"Thank you. I feel a lot better knowing you're there. How is she?"

"Worried about you. But she's holding up. She cooked."

"Yeah? What did she make?"

"Goulash. I never had that before, even when I was in Europe. It was really good. What did you have?'

"Lucky you," Max replied. "We stopped on the road. I had a chicken wrap and fries. We're on our way to Marston University to talk to her roommate. This is not looking good. We think now there was more than one killer involved."

"Great. Just what I wanted for Christmas. Another group of serial killer whack jobs."

"There's only one victim so far," she said. "That we know of."

"They're not gonna stop at one."

"So we'll stop 'em"

"Yeah. You watch your back."

"I will. And you watch Gwen."

"I will," he said. "I just...I feel like I'm letting you down. I said I'd always be here for you."

"You are there for me," Max assured him. "Even when we're apart. Now be there for her. There's no one I trust more. And there's no one Ryan would have trusted more."

"I love you."

"I love you too," she said. "I'll call later.

"He's staying with Gwen," she said, as she disconnected.

"Good. I called Quantico. BAU is working up a profile, but we probably won't hear back from them tonight. * Ever see this MO before?"

"No."

"OK, so maybe this is someone who's been obsessed with you for a while."

"As far as we know," she said, "Joe's people are all accounted for. The same goes for Lily's kids."

"This is not resurrection," he reminded her. "It's your legacy. I think it's someone we've never heard of before."

"Hell of a legacy. Well, I'll try to carry on the family traditions. But why me? Why now?"

"Maybe he's finally got help. And you're famous."

"I'm famous for being Ryan's niece."

"You're a lot more than that. You got Luke Gray. Daisy Locke. You saved Ryan's life that day. And you're gonna get a lot of credit for Vince Warfield. Even Ryan didn't break that one."

"I'm famous for being famous," she said dejectedly. "Suspects want my autograph. What am I, the Kardashian of FBI agents?"

"As long as you don't become the Mark Fuhrman."

"Ok, so if this is a legacy of some sort, maybe we should be looking for any of Ryan's unsolved cases with a similar MO."

"That's something we can look at. Just remember that it cuts both ways. We're working up a profile on them, but they've already got a profile on you. News stories. Social media. Your high school yearbook if they could get hold of one."

"So given how they killed that girl," she said, " the ringleader is someone with a lot of anger issues towards women."

"And you being famous, successful, attractive.."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," she said with a smile.

"All that really trips his trigger. He's unsuccessful with women. Maybe he can't even perform sexually at all. Remember, she wasn't raped. He's got some skills. I'm guessing he's educated. He's fairly young, and in decent shape. Hauling a dead body around is hard work. He's been watching you for a long time, but now he's got one or more people to help him, and it's like a critical mass of twisted. Guys in groups will do things that they'd never do as individuals."

"You think there could actually be more than two?"

"I don't know," Dennis replied. "But whoever's behind this really wanted to make a splash. So I think they'll try to control and shape the investigation. They don't just want to be serial killers, they want to be international superstar serial killers. They want to match wits with Max Kardashian, ace FBI agent. So they're gonna make contact. Maybe a witness who comes forward. Or maybe they send another message."

"Max Kardashian, huh?" she said, grinning. "Maybe we get a reality show out of this."

"Well it used to be dead or heroes," Dennis said. "Maybe now it's dead or celebrities."

"That definitely sounds like a reality show. I think it's time we change careers."

V

Melissa Canning had lived in an on campus apartment. The campus started once you crossed Highway 9, and the scenery transitioned from upscale suburbs to empty playing fields for athletic teams that now stood empty and covered with snow. Beyond stood lecture halls with a Georgian look to them. They passed a soccer field and found themselves ona narrow winding street lined with faculty housing and on campus apartments. Mella's address was atwo story brick house on a dead end street called Covey. A black Ford Explorer with a permanent license plate sat in a No Parking Zone nearby. "That's our guy," Max said. "Pull over and double park f you have to."

Dennis did, and turned on the blue lights on the FBI car. Answering blue lights came on from the unmarked Explorer. Max and Dennis got out, realizing as they did so that the temperature was dropping fast. The driver of the Explorer made no move to get out, apparently preferring his nice warm police car to the icy wind that made Max wish she'd put on her toboggan. She rapped on the driver's side window and it rolled part way down to reveal a fiftyish man in plain clothes with salt and pepper hair and a walrus moustache. Max held up her badge.

"You Moffet?" she asked.

"That's me"

"Hardy and Fuchida, FBI. Step out of the vehicle."

"Why?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because," she replied, " we aren't going to be the only two people freezing our asses off out here."

Moffet slowly heaved himself out of the car. Even without the ski jacket he was wearing, max realized, he would be pretty well insulated against the cold.

"Still no missing persons report?" Dennis asked.

"No. Was she abducted from campus?"

"We don't know." Dennis said.

"We have regular patrols," Moffett explained. If we see anything suspicious..."

"I'm sure you're careful about security," Max interrupted, "but we aren't going to break this case out here."

VI

The place looked like it had once been a private residence that the university had bought and converted to student housing. It was brick, two story, old, and the gray paint around the door was looking like alligator skin where it was starting to flake. A postage stamp sized yard served to separate it from other houses that probably were other student apartments. Faculty at most places, Max reflected, rated better than this.

Moffett rang the bell and a tall African American woman with thick glasses, a shaved head, and a T shirt that revealed arms used to lifting something heavy opened the door. "Can I help you?" she asked.

Max and Dennis pulled out their creds. "FBI," Dennis said.

"Campus Police," Moffett added, while demonstrating that they'd given him a badge wallet of his very own.

"We need to come in," Max said.

"I'm Sierra Norman," the young woman said, stepping aside.

The living room they found themselves in had furniture that might have come from Goodwill and smelled of grass that might have come from just about anywhere. A massive couch upholstered with vinyl and patched with Gorilla Tape was occupied by a motionless human form wrapped in a ratty brown comforter. Max stared long enough to establish that the body underneath was breathing. Barely. A tall stack of books and a laptop case sat nearby, along with a couple of suitcases

"I smell weed," Moffett said.

"Are you here about that?" Sierra asked uncertainly. "I thought maybe you were here about Melissa."

"We are," Max replied. "She's been murdered."

Sierra put a hand over her mouth in horror.

"I'm so sorry," Max said. "She was found dead. It's a murder investigation. "It's not a drug bust." She glanced sharply at Moffett as she said "drug bust". Moffett looked as though he were about to say something, but whatever it was, the daggers in Max's eyes caused him to think better of it.

A slender girl with long curly brown hair wearing a sweatsuit came down the stairs in front of them. "What's happening?" she asked.

"Melissa's dead," Sierra replied.

"Oh my God."

"What about this guy/" Moffett asked, pointing at the form on the couch. "Is he dead too?"

"I'm awake," came the reply from the couch. A male voice, sleepy and a bit irritated.

"Don't you have a bed?" Moffett asked.

A sleepy looking young man with undercut blond hair and a day's growth of stubble emerged from beneath the comforter, which he kept clutched about him as he sat on the couch. "Not any more," he said, glancing over at the brunette.

"Let's skip over the sleeping arrangements for the moment," Dennis suggested. "I'm Dennis Fuchida, this is Max Hardy. Let's start with some names"

"Jessie Yankovich," the brunette said.

"And you," Dennis said to the couch potato.

"Noah Haney"

"We understand she had a roommate," Max said.

That's Kelsey," Sierra replied. "Kelsey Randolph"

"Is she here?" Max asked.

"She's upstairs in her room," Sierra said. "I think she's studying."

"We need to talk to her," Max said. "How did you know we were here about Melissa?"

"She had a stalker," Sierra replied. "Someone posted pictures of her online. On a web site for escorts."

VII

Kelsey Randolph sat cross legged on her bed, her eyes moist with unshed tears. Her laptop was open on a small desk at the window. She'd been working on a paper when they knocked on her door.

"So tell us about this stalker," Max said.

"It was four days ago," Kelsey began. "She started getting calls from guys looking for sex. As in they were looking to hire an escort, and they thought she was one."

"What was the web site?" Dennis asked.

"One of the guys said it was the adult personals section of Altlist. He said that's where he got her name and number. So she checked, and yeah there she was. Pictures of her, along with her real name, cell number, everything"

"Did they hack her social media?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Is that her laptop?" he asked, pointing at a desk next to Kelsey's with a laptop case sitting on it.

"Yes."

"OK, we're going to need that," Max said. "It may have been hacked, and if it was, we need to find out who did it. Did she have a boyfriend?"

"Yeah, his name is Lance Jessup. He's a student here."

"Did they have a breakup?" She asked. " An argument?"

"No, they were really happy together. They hadn't been seeing each other very long. Lance just transferred here from Lightford. He seems really nice."

"You know how to reach him?" she asked.

"No."

"That's Ok," Max said, "we can get his contact information from the administration. Any exes? Guys she broke up with, or had problems with?"

'Well, she broke up with a guy named Justin Ritter, but that was over a month ago."

"Did he try to contact her after?" Dennis asked.

"Sure. He called a whole bunch of times, and wanted to get back together."

"How long did he keep calling?" Dennis asked. "Or did he ever stop?"

"It went on for a couple of weeks, but he finally gave it up."

"So the last call was two weeks ago?" Dennis Nothing since

"Yeah. To the day. He cheated on her, that was why they broke up. Justin's kind of a player, and Melissa just got tired of it."

"Did he ever threaten her?" he asked. "Did he ever abuse her?"

Kelsey shook her head. "No. She would have told me if he had."

"Was there anyone else that she dated?" Max asked. "Broke up with? Turned down?"

"She mentioned that she turned a guy down. I don't know his name. She said he was in her Spanish literature class, and that he came across as being really lame and spergy."

"No other description?" Max continued.

"No."

"I wanna go back to this stalker for a second," Max said. "Did she report this?"

"Yeah. She went to the City police."

"Ok," Max said. "We'll get a copy of that report. When did you see her last?"

"Last night, a little after eight. She left to go to the Rhino Mart. She wasn't supposed to be gone long."

"She had a car?"

"An old Camry."

Max shot a glance at Dennis. _So where's that car?_ "Has anyone talked to her parents?" she asked. "Told them she hasn't come in?"

"No. I tried to call her. I called the campus cops, but they said it was 48 hours for a missing persons report."

Max removed a card from the inside pocket of her suit jacket and handed it to Melissa.

"Thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, let us know."

Dennis picked up the laptop from Melissa's desk. As they turned to leave, Max stopped for a moment.

"Out of curiosity, what's up with the guy on the couch?"

"You mean Noah? Well, he was engaged to Jessie."

"Dark curly hair," Max said.

"Yeah. She's a couple of years older than him. Anyway, she threw him out for someone else. Guy's name is Gareth. I think he's at work right now. Anyway, Gareth moved in with Jessie, because the room was in her name, and Noah's on the couch for now."

"That's got to be an awkward," Dennis said.

"More awkward than you know. Gareth is married."

They stepped out of the room, and Dennis closed the door behind them. "You did say something about a reality show," he muttered.

"Not now."

VIII

They started down the stairs, Dennis carrying Melissa's laptop under his arm.

"Maybe someone else here knows who this guy in her Spanish Lit class was," Dennis said.

"Yeah," Max replied, "and I wanna look at..."

They stopped at the sound of Moffett's voice coming from downstairs.

"You do realize you can be thrown out of university housing for having drugs."

Max leaned over and whispered to Dennis. "I'll handle that."

Dennis nodded, and they went downstairs to find that Moffett had pulled the cushions off the couch, and was searching through the couch and Noah's belongings, while Haney stood miserably by.

"Could I see you outside?" Max asked.

"In a minute," Moffett replied.

"Now," Max said quietly.

Max and Moffett stepped outside, leaving Noah looking disconsolately at his scattered books and the remains of his bed.

"Do me a favor," she said. "We're here to catch this animal before he kills again, not hassle these kids over a little weed. We need them talking to us. Helping us. I don't want them being defensive."

'This stuff is still illegal, you know.'

"Moffett, relent. In case you haven't noticed, this is a Bureau case and the Bureau is in charge. Let me ask you something. Did EFPD call you about Melissa Canning having problems with a cyberstalker? Because she did file a report."

Moffett hesitated a moment before answering. "Yeah."

"And you didn't make the connection when her roommate called and said no one had seen her for a while."

"It's 48 hours for a ..."

"And you still didn't think of it when we called and said she was dead."

"Look, I'm sorry. The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, OK?"

"We called your department because they have a need to know, but you're here with us as a professional courtesy. So either you start being professional or I stop being courteous."

Moffett nodded wordlessly, a look of resentment on his face. Max opened the door and they stepped back inside to find Noah replacing the couch cushions. Max noticed that another occupant of the house had joined the group, a young man with an unkempt side fringe of light brown hair, wire rim glasses, and a black T shirt that proclaimed he'd rather be sleeping. He held a can of Red Bull in his hand. He took a swig, apparently draining it, and set the can down on a lamp table at the end of the sofa.

"Name?" she asked the would be sleeper.

"Phil Hegstrom."

"How many more live here?" she asked.

"There's three bedrooms upstairs," Moffett said, "and one down. They converted this place from a private home."

"So who's missing?" Dennis asked.

"Well, Gareth's at work," Phil replied. "My roommate, Wayne Cowen is pulling an all nighter in the library, and I'm not sure where Amelia is."

"She's at work," Sierra explained. "Amelia Vance, my roommate. She has a job as a waitress."

"Ok," Max said, "For the benefit of anyone who showed up late, Melissa Canning has been murdered."

"Was it Marty?" Phil asked.

"Who's Marty?" Max replied.

"Marty Rolfe. This guy who asked her out. She gave him like, a nuclear rejection."

"Was he in one of her classes?" she asked.

"Yeah, Spanish lit. I was there. It was at the student union. Last week."

Max glanced over at Dennis for a moment before proceeding. "Are you in that same class?"

"No. She was there for a meeting. Mayday Volunteer Club, and I was just hanging out. Anyway, I happened to see it. He was kind of a dork, and she shot him down pretty hard."

IX

Outside, the wind had picked up, and although the cars were, Max close byher coat all the way up to her neck.

"We should talk to this guy Rolfe," Moffett said, as they trudged back to the cars.

Max was suddenly aware of how long the day had been and that she was tired enough to be irritable. Moffett was seriously getting on her nerves. "Not yet," she replied. "I want to see the route to this store she said she was going to. Her car hasn't turned up. If she was carjacked, it might have happened on the way to or from the store. I want to look at the ground. Someone may And we need to tell EFPD. Someone may have seen something. They have to start canvassing the area."

X

The Rhino Mart was a stop and rob on Pichany Street sandwiched between a drug store and a vaping shop. Max and Dennis sat beneath a flickering sodium light watching a thin dirty looking man in a peas coat walking out of the front door. He carried a bag that was about the right size for a 40 ounce bottle of malt liquor. Max tried to guess his age, but couldn't. It hardly mattered, she reflected. He was probably a lot younger than he looked.

"So what do you think?" Dennis asked.

"Well the area's poorly lit. The whole damn street is. If they wanted to carjack her, there's several places where they could have done it. But the car hasn't turned up yet. Where is it?"

"Impound maybe. It could have been found already."

"No, if it was found, they'd run the plates and a flag would go up. Missing college girl. This is starting to look awfully well organized."

"Well, we've got the name of her ex. It gives us a place to start. And that guy she rejected, Marty Rolfe."

"Which Hegstrom so very helpfully volunteered."

"I wondered if you'd caught that.'

"Max Kardashian, ace FBI agent, catches everything," she said with a grin. "So before we talk to him, let's see if Marty Rolfe has any priors. And just for the hell of it, let's see if Phil Hegstrom has any priors."

"A couple of the people in that house weren't home," Dennis pointed out."We should probably interview them."

"Let's give that job to our good friends at the Hartford Field Office. If they want to be in the loop, they can help with the scut work. While they're at it, they can interview Justin Ritter. We need to interview him and Rolfe both. I want Rolfe.

"Because we got his name from Hegstrom?"

"Yeah, and Ritter lives over in White Plains. That's too much ground for us to cover in one morning."

"So where to now?"

"The hotel. I need to crash for a few hours. I'll call the Hartford Field Office and have someone meet us there. I'm going to hand that laptop over to them."

"You're not doing it yourself?"

"No, and neither are they. They can send it to Federal Plaza. By courier. I'll have Shelby send a chopper. ** I'm giving it to Mike."

"The Hartford guys aren't gonna like that," Dennis said.

"My case, my legacy, my rules. If these animals want to match wits with me, they can match wits with Mike too. We're a package deal."

XI

Ryan picked over the remains of a bacon cheeseburger, which at this point consisted of little more than a sliver of bun and some bits of tomato, pickle, and lettuce. The fries were long since gone, the glass of ginger ale was nearly empty, and still no sign of Kelso. Ryan considered calling him, but decided against it. No point in pestering the man, he'd show or he wouldn't, and if he didn't, well, Kelso did kind of have a point about moles inside the Bureau.

He wiped the grease from his fingers with the last clean napkin and drained what was left of his ginger ale. He began scanningthe room for the waitress, intending to ask for the check when he saw Kelso squeezing past a knot of people at the door who were still waiting for a table.

'Sorry I'm late," Kelso said as he sat down. "These things can take time."

"Well?" Ryan asked.

Kelso ignored him and motioned for a waitress. "Fish and chips," he said. "And a Seasonal Sam."

"Anything else for you sir?", the waitress asked Ryan, who shook his head.

"Well?" he asked again, after the waitress had gone.

"We're on for tomorrow. Two o'clock."

"Good. Any idea what his price might be.?"

"Three thousand per unit, minimum. And he will want to check the money first."

"I can put up thirty thousand."

"The vigilante business must pay good," Kelso said.

"Not usually. I made out OK on the Van Haaren deal."

"I should have asked for a bigger cut," Kelso said ruefully. " Ok, It's your might be going to this meet alone, but he won't. Let me ask you this. How are you planning to keep the Organization from coming after me?"

"My information is that he does his illegal gun business on the side. It's something he does to make a little mad money. They don't know he's dealing on the side, and they wouldn't approve. Harvey's a grifter at heart. So they aren't going to know about you, and if they find out, they might not even care."

"That's thin," Kelso said. "Let me ask you this. When he shows up for the exchange, what's your plan. You want him dead? Or alive?"

"Alive. I need some names. When I get those names, I'm as good as home."

"And you're doing this all by your lonesome."

"Yeah."

"And I set up the deal."

"That's the plan."

"I think one or both of us is insane."

XII

"So you're real," Devin said.

"I really am," Kyle replied, smiling. "The question is, are you?"

"What do you mean?"

" I could ask if you're wearing a wire. I could take somewhere and we could have you strip. But we're not gonna do that. We don't need to. It's very simple, really. At some point, I'm gonna tell you to do something that an undercover cop won't be able to do."

"Because it'll be illegal," Devin said.

Kyle glanced over at Russell. "Smart guy," he said.

"Smart guy," Russell repeated.

"So tell me," Kyle said, " why are you here? "I know we've talked online. But I want to be able to look you in the eye as you tell em what it is that brought you to me."

Devin looked flustered for a moment, as if uncertain how to answer. "Failure," he said at last.

"Whose failure?" Kyle asked.

"Everyone's failure. Not telling me what it is that women really want. How things really are. I'm twenty-three and I've had a total of four dates. None of which ever led to anything. I've never kissed, never...But it really is just like you say in yur Manifesto. Women really are only attracted to that top 20% of guys. And I didn't win the lottery. Not the genetic lottery, or the status lottery, or anything else.

"For a long time," he continued, I tried to understand. It seemed so easy for other people, but it was so impossible for me. I was a total reject. I started reading a lot online, trying to understand. And eventually I stumbled on your web site. Your manifesto. I started reading that and it was like...I suddenly got it. The reason I failed was because I could never succeed. The game was rigged against me, long before I ever started to play.

"But I also saw that there was another side to that coin. I had nothing to lose, and if I couldn't win, then I had no further reason to play by their rules."

'We don't play by their rules," Kyle said. "We rewrite their rules, and make our own. Us. The Apex Gentlemen who refused to sink to the level of the Chads and pick up artists. And our number one rule is that we stick together. Alone we're weak. Together, we're invincible, and we can make the rules to suit us.

"Someone said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Well, we did. And then one day we came together, and realized that we could take what we want. And do you know what we want? To make them suffer. To see them grovel. The sluts. The bitches. Being unwanted, by anyone, is a kind of living death. You're in pain every second, really. As one of us, you get to inflict pain for a change."

"So how does this work?" Devin asked.

"I'll assign you to help with a hunt. Maybe more than one. There's no set number. You'll be helping a brother to have a woman he desires, and you'll be proving yourself to us."

"What will I do?"

"It depends. You might provide a brother with an alibi. Maybe carry his phone, and send a text with it. Take it somewhere and back, so the GPS data looks right. While he enjoys a bitch.

"Or you might help us with a stakeout. Or in other ways. Maybe you help actually take a bitch, and deliver her to a brother. As you prove yourself, you'll be assigned more demanding tasks. And finally, you'll reap a reward. The brothers will help you to take a bitch of your own. And then you'll make her suffer. Just as you've suffered."

Devin looked over again at the couple across the room. "I think this is the part where I ask who it is I have to kill. But then I'm sure you're gonna tell me."

Kyle and Russell smiled at each other. "That's the spirit," Kyle said. "And I'll tell you something else. A lot of the rewards are intangible. Women love confidence and they love bad boys. You're about to become a new man. You'll have the confidence that comes from success with women. Not success in the conventional sense, of course, but success even so. That confidence, that change in attitude, will carry into the rest of your life. I've seen it in my own life. Because I've stopped being impressed with them. I know what I can do to them. Have done.

"So the first thing we need to do," Kyle continued, "is ask you a few questions. Now I know you don't have a criminal record because I've already run a check online. I have to, it's one of the rules. You can't have priors. More than that, no history of stalking. No restraining orders. Because we aren't just hunters, we're hunted. There can't be anything in your background that might make you look suspicious to the cops. So I have to ask. Have you stalked? Done anything that might turn up in a police or FBI database?"

"No"

"Good," Kyle said. "Now the first job will be for you to buy a prepaid phone. With your money. It'll be a burner. And tomorrow evening at seven you'll meet Russell here, and you'll give him the number of that phone. That's so we can contact you in a hurry when we need to. He'll also go over some procedures with you. Rules you have to follow.

"This is just a first step for you. A step towards a time when you give us the name of the slut you've picked out, and we make her yours."

"How many have you had?" Devin asked.

Kyle gave devin the sort of smile a teacher might give to a student who's lagging, but making an effort. "That would be telling. Actually, I haven't really had the one I want the most. But her time is coming."

"I'd like to help with that," Devin said.

'We'll have to see about that," Kyle replied. "Be here tomorrow. And welcome to your new life."

XIII

Kyle and Russell drove down a busy city street, a few flurries drifting down on the heavy traffic.

'So what do you think?" Russell asked.

"I get good vibes. We'll give him a couple of test assignments to see what he can do."

"You want me to use him tomorrow?" Russell asked.

"Shit no. He's not ready for that. You asked me why Max Hardy. And the answer is because she's a killer. She blew away Luke Gray. And he's not the only one. There was Daisy Locke, some dude they never even identified earlier this year, and some crackhead back when she was a cop.

"We could take some model, or actress, or what have you, But it wouldn't be the same. We're going to show that we can take someone who's capable of fighting back. And after, when they find what's left of her, guys are going to hear about it, and they won't admit it, maybe not even to themselves, but she was smoking hot, and they're going to wonder. Man what was it like to do _that_ to her? Men will envy us. Women will fear us. And at some level, they'll wonder if they could be the one we'd take, and choose to keep."

"So why not just take her?" Russell asked. "Aren't we kind of reaching around our ass to get to our elbow?"

"No. There's some psychology here. Dread game. That's why we have to threaten her family too."

"You know, I sometimes honestly do wonder if I lost my shit before or after I met you."

"Definitely before," Kyle said. "But you do appreciate my vision."

"I do," Russell replied. "I used to think I was a loser. Then I wondered if we were all nuts. And now, I see that we're making for ourselves a better world."

Musical Interlude - Not Your Kind Of People by Garbage

============= Notes =============

* Successor to the FBI's famous Behavioral Sciences Unit, which pioneered the profiling of serial killers. The unit still exists, but bureaucratic reorganizations have resulted in the name being changed to Behavioral Analysis Unit 5 (BAU-5)

** The FBI's Field Office in New York City is located at One Federal Plaza.

22


	4. Do You Plan To Take Anyone Alive?

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated T. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Chapter 4 - Do You Plan To Take Anyone Alive?

Mike woke to the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen. Someone, he realized, who was trying to be quiet. He tensed, and rolled over onto his side, facing the coffee table. He lay quietly, listening for any sound from the kitchen. A moment later, he heard the sound of the refrigerator door opening. The bottles and jars inside the door made silence impossible. Gwen. Well, either it was Gwen or serial killers had broken in to fix themselves a snack.

He smelled coffee, and decided that alone would have been enough to wake him up. He sat up and surveyed the living room. The coffee table held the DVD cases from last night's binge watch and an empty microwave popcorn bag. In addition, there was his phone, his Glock in a black kydex paddle holster, a spare magazine, and a pocket LED flashlight.

 _Because there's nothing like binge watching The Walking Dead to make you want to sleep armed to the teeth._

"How'd you sleep?" He turned his head to find Gwen standing in the kitchen door wearing a long floral print robe, her hair pinned up.

"Sound enough that I didn't hear you walk through the room. Some bodyguard I make."

"Even bodyguards have to sleep sometime. Would you like some breakfast?"

"After I clean up. Mind if I use the shower?"

After standing under the shower and changing into jeans and a dark gray cotton shirt, Mike found himself addressing a bowl of oatmeal, cinnamon toast, and coffee.

"Any word from Max?" Gwen asked as she spooned out some of her grapefruit.

"She sent a text while I was in the shower. She and Dennis are interviewing a witness this morning. Hopefully they can get whoever this is real soon and you can have me out of here."

"I don't mind you being here," Gwen said with a smile. "I enjoy the company. It gets quiet here sometimes. What time do you go into work?"

"I am at work right now. They'll manage to get the paperwork processed without me. I'm pretty redundant these days."

"No you're not," she said. "Not to us. And not to the Bureau. It's not much longer now. You're almost there."

"So what do you have planned?"

"I'm getting my hair done this morning."

"I'll drive you."

"Thank you. It'll make a long boring wait for you, but I really appreciate what you're doing. I'm just sorry you have to sleep on the couch."

"It's a very comfortable couch," he assured her. "Way more so than ours, and I've had a lot of practice sleeping on that."

"Oh come on. She doesn't make you sleep on the couch."

"No, but after I got out of the hospital there were a lot of days when I wasn't well enough to go back to work, but I could be left alone. So I'd be at home, and feeling like crap. So where do you go? To the couch. This is a documented medical phenomenon. You're a doctor. You're supposed to know this stuff."

Gwen laughed, and regarded Mike with an appraising kind of smile. "You've changed."

"I have?"

"Yeah. You nearly died. And you've come out of it stronger."

"If I was really stronger I wouldn't have hurt myself when I was moving furniture."

"You know what I mean," she said reprovingly.

"They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But it still hurts"

"You can joke if you want to, but a lot of guys would have given up. Life knocked you down, and you got back up a better man. So when's the wedding?"

"First I have to make it all the way back. Then we'll see. There wasn't much use planning for the future until I knew I had one. And after all this time living day to day, it's hard to get used to the idea of making plans again."

"Well I hope those plans include starting a family. Because I think you'd make a great father."

He smiled at the thought. "We'll see. I gotta get to normal first."

"It's just a few weeks away," she said. "You've made it."

"We made it. Together. And I mean all three of us. And we're gonna get through this. I'll clean up the dishes. What time is your appointment?"

II

Kyle Richmond was not normally an early riser, but today was an exception. Partly it was nerves. He had a lot of irons in the fire at the moment, and therefore a lot on his mind. Sometimes his sleep patterns became very irregular. He'd run on caffeine and nervous energy for days, sleeping four hours at most, until eventually he'd crash and burn. At times he wished he could keep vampire hours, living by night and sleeping the days away, but his circumstances didn't permit it.

He was enrolled at Marston University as a graduate student, and held down a part time job as a teaching assistant. But running Ellion was taking up more and more of his time. He kept up a pretense of getting a masters in social psychology, but that was just to keep up appearances. He kept up the appearance of being just another grad student, but the career he was preparing for wasn't anything you could study in any school.

Given the relatively short drive time to the university, he lived at home. That was inexpensive, but it also meant that his father or the staff might see him coming and going. That mostly wasn't a problem, but some of his comings and goings these days he preferred not to explain. He knew his father was expected to return from a business trip the previous night, but he'd gotten home after the old man had gone to bed.

Which was another reason why he actually set an alarm so that he could rise early this morning. He padded to the dresser in his boxers, and carried the laptop he'd put on top of it over to the bed. He sat down, opened the laptop, and booted it up.

The cameras he'd planted showed that his father had gone into his study the previous night. He began the surveillance footage. Most of it was uninteresting, and he fast forwarded through it. He stopped at the scene of his father opening the safe, and zoomed in. The safe had a simple numeric keypad, and from this angle, one of the cameras had a view of it. Zooming in, he was able to capture his father entering the combination.

A rotary dial lock would have presented more of an obstacle, since he wouldn't have been able to zoom in enough to read it. He'd been prepared to deal with that. All he needed to know was where the safe was located. With that much information, , he could get help from some of the brothers and stage a break in which would be timed to coincide with one of his father's many trips. Any staff with the misfortune to become inadvertent witnessers could eliminated. If need be, they could rip the whole safe out of the wall, cart it off, and work on it at their leisure. But this was a stroke of luck. He could get into the safe alone and unaided.

He quietly dressed, and slipped out of his bedroom. He made his way cautiously to the study, and stood before the panel in the bookcase that concealed the safe, asking himself if this was really a good idea.

 _Probably not. But fuck it._

He opened the panel, entered the code for the safe, and cautiously opened it. A brief search yielded up what he was looking for. A white plastic bracelet with a digital bar code. The Key To The Kingdom.

He stared at the bracelet, imagining what lay behind the door it was said to open. If he did this, there would be no going back, and he might not have judged the reaction as well as he had thought. But he'd spent most of his life in a partly self imposed prison, fearful of the normal human relationships that everyone else took for granted. He had been born damned, and suffered the torments of hell ever since. A man without hope could be a man without fear.

He pocketed the bracelet, closed up the safe, and quietly slipped out.

III

Marty Rolfe lived in a duplex on the edge of the business district where residential neighborhoods shaded into shops located in buildings that looked like houses on the outside. The place sat at a four way intersection. There was a nail salon across the street with an apartment on its second floor. The area looked a little pricey for a college student.

She pulled the car over, parked at the curb a short distance away, and reached for the coffee in the cup holder. She'd decided hat the best time to talk to Rolfe would be before he left for class. That meant getting up way too early after getting to bed way too late last night.

"Nice area," Dennis commented.

"Yeah."

"Guy's got no priors, and his record in the Navy was clean."

"You know the drill," she said. "It's usually the last guy she was with. Husband, boyfriend, whatever. We have to at least cross him off the list."

"We're probably looking at more than one guy."

"I know But I'm thinking about last night. We got Rolfe's name from Hegstrom. Hegstrom's got no priors, but apparently there's a juvie record, and it's sealed. After this we'll make some phone calls. But before we go off on a tangent, we check everything."

She put the cup back in the holder, and stepped out into the snow. What had been light and powdery yesterday now had a patina of ice on top that crunched under her boots. "Do you think they've got that laptop to Federal Plaza yet?" Dennis asked as they approached the door.

"They damn well better. They wasted my time arguing last night."

"You sent the laptop to New York because Welles was a bitch."

"If, as you say, these guys have profiled me, then I want Mike's insight. He knows me, and he'll tell me if he thinks I'm making a mistake. Besides, he's been benched a long time. He'll appreciate having something to do. And yes, Welles was a bitch."

IV

Marty Rolfe was a tall man with close cropped brown hair that made him look military, a Green Lantern T shirt that made him look like a geek, and nerd glasses that made him look like he should be writing for The Village Voice.

"I'm told," Max said, "that she shot you down pretty hard."

"I asked her how her day was going. She said it would be a lot better if I left her the fuck alone."

"That wasn't very nice," Dennis observed.

"That's how it is now," Rolfe shrugged. "They feel free to embarrass you in front of other people."

"Were you angry about it?" he asked.

"Yeah, is there a law against that?"

"No," Max replied. "Look, you're not a suspect, but we have to talk to everyone who knew her. Where were you the night she was killed?"

"Beats the shit out of me, since I don't know when she was killed. And that sounds like a you're really a suspect kind of question."

"Thursday night," she replied.

"Here. Writing a paper."

"Alone?" she asked. "No calls? No visitors? No trips out?"

"No calls, no visitors, no trips out. You wanna check the GPS on my phone?"

"You watch a lot of CSI?" Dennis asked.

"Shit no. I hate that show. It's a total chick show."

"Well, if you really were a suspect," Dennis replied, "I'd point out that you could have left the phone at home. Offering a lameass explanation like that either means that you've been watching too many cop shows or you have something to hide. Personally, I think you've seen too many cop shows."

"Don't get cute," Max said. "That's how innocent guys end up in the joint. What about after? Did you ask her out again?"

"No. Hell no."

"Did you ever visit any of her social media? Dennis asked. "Leave any comments?"

"I followed her Instagram. She had one. I left some comments."

"But nothing harassing," Max said. "Nothing threatening."

"Of course not," Rolfe said. "You can check for yourself."

"We will," she said. "Were you ever over at her place? She shared an apartment on campus with some people."

"I've been over there,"Rolfe said. "There's a guy. Noah Haney. We're both in a study group for a class. Organic chemistry. Dr Lidell teaches it. Our group meets over there sometimes."

"Anyone else there you know well?" she asked.

"Not well. I talk to Sierra sometimes. She's kinda nice. Phil Hegstrom is in one of my classes, but I don't know him well."

"What class?" Dennis asked.

"Greek epic poetry. I just take it to meet the humanities requirement. Phil takes a lot Greek courses. Epic poetry, history, stuff like that."

"Is he majoring in Greek?" she asked.

"No. Computer science."

Max reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and pulled out a small black card holder from which she produced a business card. "Mr Rolfe, thank you. We appreciate your cooperation. If you think of anything that might help us, that's my number."

V

Outside the clouds were breaking and the morning Sun was painfully bright on the newly fallen snow.

"We didn't cross him off," Dennis said. "He's got no alibi."

"He's also got no real motive," Max pointed out. "They were never together."

"Guys have been known to get violent over rejection," Dennis said. "Happens all the time."

"Mike's gonna go through that laptop. Someone hacked her social media and she was cyberstalked. If Rolfe was spending a lot of time on her Instagram or whatever, then he goes to the top of the list. But right now, the only reason we're standing here is because Phil Hegstrom volunteered his name. Phil Hegstrom who lived in the same building as Melissa Canning, and who just happens to be in a class with Rolfe."

Max began walking towards the car. "I've got an idea," she said.

Inside the car, with the heater running, she took out his phone and opened up a browser. "What are you doing?" Dennis asked.

"Checking something."

"Your likes on facebook?"

"No. This." she handed the phone to Dennis.

"What's this?" he asked.

"The Greek alphabet. E, M H, and N are all capital letters in the Greek alphabet. Alpha, Mu, Eta, Nu."

"You know Greek?"

"I knew some frat guys when I was in school."

Dennis studied the image on the screen. "Were you in a sorority?"

"No. Were you in a frat?

"Actually, yes," he replied.

"I'm having trouble picturing you as a frat rat."

"I was a Pineapple"

"Pineapple?" she asked.

"Pi Alpha Phi. At Berkeley. It's an Asian frat. You know, I should have thought of this myself. You want to talk to Hegstrom?"

"Yes," she said. "But before we do, I want to see what's on that laptop, I want to see that juvie record, and I want to play around with this EMHN business. If it is Greek, let's try to figure out what it might mean."

He handed back the phone. " This whole thing is kind of a stretch. You think Hegstrom is stringing us along?"

"Well, someone is. They sent those letters because they mean something. And you said yourself they'd try to control the investigation. So let's just see where it leads."

Dennis put the car in gear and eased out into the road. "There's gotta be someone here on campus," he suggested

Max put her sunglasses on against the glare. "Maybe it's Greek for pineapple," she said.

VI

The Christmas decorations were up in the store windows, but the streets of Brooklyn rang out with police sirens, horns, and cursing drivers as Mike steered Gwen's gray CR-V down a detour to avoid the wreck that had traffic on 7th Avenue hopelessly snarled. "We'll get there," he assured Gwen. "Just maybe a few minutes late."

"We're doing fine," she said. "We left a little early. So is Jenny coming for Christmas?"

"Yeah, she called, and she's definitely coming up."

"Have you ever met her?"

"Yeah, she stopped by the hospital to visit me when she came to Ryan's funeral. I think you were snowed under with patients at the time. And she's been up a couple of times since."

"So make sure she knows that she's invited to Christmas dinner."

"She'll be there. I know she'll want to meet her new nephew."

"So what are we having for Christmas dinner?" Gwen asked. "What do I make?"

"You're not doing all the cooking," Mike protested.

"No, but with a new baby it's easier if everyone comes over to my place. So what are we having?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what did your family have for Christmas dinner?"

"Mom would roast a turkey."

"Mashed potatoes or stuffing? Or both? I'll bet I was both."

"Mashed potatoes were like, my favorite food," he explained, smiling at the memory. "Mom would make the mashed potatoes, but my Grandmother would make stuffing. Dad loved that. So what did your family have?"

"I am so making mashed potatoes. We did turkey at Thanksgiving, but Christmas we'd do something different."

"Like?"

"My father was really fond of ham," she explained. "Which I hated. We had goose a couple of times, but that was hard to do. Mom tried, but she never really got it right. The drumsticks cook at a different rate from everything else. But then we tried pheasant. And everyone liked that."

"You can get those?"

"Yes. Farm raised, unless you want to shoot them yourself. It's very lean. They're small, so for a group, you have to get two. But they're really good. And it's not hard to do. There's very little fat on them, so you have to put some bacon or something on them or they get too dry. And you cook them with apples, pears, and of course some stuffing. The best way to do it is in a Dutch oven. If you roast them, they can get dry. It's really good."

"It sounds like it. You know, the more I think about it, the more I think I want to do something different this year. I'm starting all over again. We all are. And if we try to do what my family always did every year, I think it's just going to remind me that they're gone. You and Max are my family now. And Jenny. And your son. I want to start some new traditions. For all the Christmases to come. I mean, we have to run it by Max, but..."

"I bet she'd love the idea."

Ahead, the traffic light was changing to yellow, and Mike, wanting to get Gwen to her appointment on time, decided to race it. He barely made it under before the light turned red, and he began giving a turn signal so he could make his way back to 7th Avenue.

"So what do you want for Christmas?" Gwen asked.

"I've already got what I want. My life back. Everything else is gravy." From behind, he heard the blare of a horn. He glanced in his rear view mirror. A dark blue Sentra had also raced the red light, but hadn't quite made it, and someone had used the horn to express their disapproval. He turned left back towards 7th.

"Oh, come on. Give me a hint." He ignored her and glanced in the rear view mirror. The Sentra also made a left.

"All right, then, be that way."

He turned, to the right, short of Seventh. "What are you doing?" Gwen asked. "This isn't the right way."

"I know," Mike said. "But I think we might have a tail."

VII

By daylight, it was impossible not to know you were on the campus of Marston University because there were black banners with Marston U on every light pole to remind you of the fact. Next to each was a second banner with an adjective like Driven, Relentless, or Persistent. This morning, people seemed to be mostly driven to make it indoors out of the cold. Max looked at the banners lining the road, and reflected sourly that she had spent the last two years of her life hunting people who could be described as driven, relentless, and persistent. She wasn't sure if any of them had graduated from Marston, but if they had, they'd certainly lived up to their alma mater's expectations.

The Classics Department was housed in a grand two story Georgian brick building near the empty, snow covered tennis courts. The Classics Department, they'd been told at the Admin office, shared the building with the English and history departments. The physics and chemistry departments had drawn more futuristic quarters, and occupied a lower, flat roofed affair across the street with a lot more glass. Maybe, she thought, all the departments got appropriate architecture.

"Park here," Max said, pointing to a slot on the side of the road. "And you better leave the blue lights on. If this is like most colleges, they'll tow anything stationary without a sticker."

They made their way past a knot of students banished from the building into the morning cold by the campus smoking policy and through an entrance hallway watched over by large oil portraits of professors past. The classics department was on the second floor.

The plate on the office door said Cyclone McDowell, Associate Professor. The door stood open, and inside a man in jeans, a pullover sweater and warm, insulated walking shoes sat behind a desk poring over a sheaf of papers in his hand. He might have passed for a younger, clean shaven version of Mark Twain if Mark Twain had small silver earrings in both ears. Max rapped her knuckles lightly on the door to get his attention.

"Professor McDowell?" she asked.

The man looked up from his sheaf of papers, and Max and Dennis produced their badges. "Max Hardy and Dennis Fuchida," she said. "We're with the FBI..."

"Is this about the petition?" he interrupted.

"Uh..no sir," Max replied. "We're here about..."

"Because what I said could not be construed as threatening or condoning ecoterrorism When I talked about the need to confront police forces that defend facism, I was being figurative."

"Sir," Dennis said, "I thought they told you. We're here about the murder of Melissa Canning. We need to get something translated."

"You're not here about the a petition I signed calling for confrontation with globalists and their defenders?" McDowell asked. He seemed to be disappointed. Max wondered if getting busted by the FBI would have given him spiffy coolness points in the circles he moved in.

"No sir," Dennis explained. "We're wondering about some letters we found in a message from the killers. We thought they might be Greek, and we wondering what you could tell us about them."

"What were the letters?" McDowell asked.

"EMHN," she explained. They looked like capital letters in English, but we wondered if they might be Greek."

"It's possible. How were they used.?"

"They were present in a message," Max said. "They weren't used in a sentence. We wondered if it might be a name, or maybe a word that could be translated."

"Greek letters can be used to spell words," McDowell explained, "or they have symbolic meaning, sort of like the names of fraternities. They can be symbols in mathematics or physics. Also, some people believe in a kind of Greek alphabet code, where the letters take on symbolic meanings. If all you have is the letters by themselves, then it's hard to say what they might mean to the person who wrote them." He gestured at two chairs sitting against the wall. "Sit down, please. Make yourselves comfortable." He pointed at a box of trade paperback books that sat in one of the chairs. "You can move that," he said.

Dennis placed the box on the floor while Max took the empty seat. "Are you talking about how fraternities come up with Greek letters for their names?" she asked.

"No," McDowell said. "Those can be the first letters of some sort of motto, or they can have some other meaning. Phi Beta Kappa, for example, stands for 'Philosphia Biou Kybernetes'. It means 'Love of wisdom is the guide of life.' A lot of other fraternities and sororities choose their names in a similar way, but in some cases the exact meaning is told only to the members. If this is Greek, it could be that this is the name of a group. The letters might stand for words, or they might stand for concepts."

"But it's not a word?" Dennis asked.

"Not any word I've ever heard of. It might be a name, though. Maybe. Since you can pronounce it."

"How is it pronounced?" she asked.

"Ellion. You said killers, plural. Is this some kind of a group?"

"It's possible," Max replied.

"Like some kind of cult? Like the one your uncle took down?" He waited for a moment for a reply. "I know who you are." He said it as if it were an accusation.

"I get that a lot," she answered. "So it could be the name of a group."

"Maybe. But if it is, the meaning will be known only to the members."

"What about a coded message?" she asked. "You said there was a kind of Greek alphabet code."

"That's not really a widely accepted theory. It almost falls under the heading of an occult belief. There was a documentary about it, and there's been some writings about it."

"Well assuming it's alphabet code," Dennis said, "what are some possible meanings?"

"That's almost anyone's guess. Epsilon might denote motion or energy. Mu has several possible meanings. One of them could be double. It could be a reference to the Sun, or light, or enlightenment. Eta, which is the H, could mean knowledge, or secret knowledge, or gnosis, or revelation. Nu could mean mind, or philosophy, or law."

"So, moving sunlight that secretly knows the law?" Dennis asked.

"Maybe," McDowell smiled. "If this is some kind of killer cult, I would hardly expect thinking that was logical by our standards. And keep in mind that whatever it means to them could be based on a misunderstanding of Greek language or letters on their part. I somehow doubt that they're classical scholars."

"You mean classical scholars don't ever commit crimes?" Max asked. "I mean, you thought we might have been here looking for you."

"I was involved in a protest," he said. "That's not a crime. And we certainly don't commit as many crimes as FBI agents."

"What did we do?" she asked innocently.

"I saw the hearings," he said.

Max stood, took out a card with her name and contact information, and placed it on McDowell's desk. "Thanks professor. If you think of anything..."

"Sure. Out of morbid curiosity, do you plan to take anyone alive this time?"

She looked at Dennis, the ghost of a smile on her face. "I don't know. How long since we executed a suspect?"

"There was that guy last week," Dennis said. "Remember?"

"That's right. I was in a bad mood, and it was Wednesday."

VIII

"So what's on the agenda for today?" Russell asked.

Kyle gunned his BMW from the curb into the morning traffic with Russell in the passenger seat putting a cup of coffee into the drink holder, a bagel wrapped in paper clutched in his other hand.

"Careful," Russell said irritably. "This shit is hot, and I do not want it in my lap."

"You're worried about burning your junk? It's not like you ever do anything useful with it."

"Asshole," Russell muttered as he fumbled with his seat belt with the bagel perched precariously on the dashboard.

"So," Kyle said, "the agenda for today is we gotta start getting Devin up to speed, we need to start planning how we take that Goth chick you're interested in , that works at the used bookstore, and, oh yeah, we're gonna kill Mike Weston."

"Who did you put on that?" Russell asked, around a mouthful of bagel.

"Sarnoff and that asshole Crenshaw."

"You sure about this?"

"Sure about the plan? Or the team?"

"Both."

"The plan is solid. The team is what we got. Weston is staying with Dr. Gwen Carter. Bodyguarding, you might say, so they know where to pick up his trail."

"You know this?"

"I got a call from them earlier. I thought he might do something like this since he's not back on full duty yet. Max probably assigned him to the job."

"Are they gonna do Gwen Carter?"

"Fuck no. No fat chicks, and especially no pregnant fat chicks."

"And we have to do Weston because..."

"We have to do a thorough job."

"Of?"

"Destroying Max."

"And Sarnoff and Crenshaw can do this?"

"Sure. Weston is still not a hundred percent. And I gave them something that should give 'em an edge."

IX

Mike made an abrupt turn onto 52nd Street without giving a signal. So did the Sentra. He fumbled for his phone, trying to keep track of the Sentra behind him, the Kia in front of him, assorted cars parked along both sides of this narrow one way street, and the phone in his hand.

Gwen, he thought, was probably more worried about his driving than whoever might be tailing them.

"Are you sure?" Gwen asked, turning her head to look behind them,

"Pretty sure," Mike mumbled.

"Command Center, Amy Klesko," a woman said over the phone.

"Amy, it's Mike Weston. I'm southbound on 52nd in Brooklyn. We're approaching 8th. I have a dark blue Sentra behind me, and I think it's tailing us. I have a passenger in the car. Request immediate assistance, and get on the street surveillance cams. I'm in a gray late model CR-V, license number..." he looked at Gwen, who was still looking back. "License number," Mike repeated.

"8 uh...8E4092"

"Eight echo four zero niner two," Mike said into the phone. I'm turning north on 8th. We just passed the Lutheran church on 52nd."

"Got it," Amy replied. "Help's on the way."

"Who are they?" Gwen asked, alarm in her voice. "Are they the people who sent that message?"

"I don't know," he replied. "But my suspicions run that way."

"What do they want?"

"To know where we're going," he said grimly. "Because they've got something planned. I don't think it's a drive by, but we're not going to stop. Just keep calm, the cops are on the way."

On this part of 8th Avenue, the signs over the shops were in Chinese as well as English. There weren't a lot of pedestrians out walking around. There weren't a lot of open parking spaces either. The Sentra was still behind them, but had dropped back, and a white Saturn had moved in between them. Mike debated his options. He wasn't sure how long he'd have to wait for the police response. There was a shoe store ahead on the right. The left side of the road was taken up with a demolition site. An old brick building surrounded by scaffolding was being torn down. There was parking space available in front of the shoe store. He could pull off and try to hustle Gwen inside.

 _No. Because they fade out or try something right here. You're spooked because it's Gwen. Maintain and wait for help._

He eased to a stop at a red light. "Are they still back there?" Gwen asked.

" I can't tell. We'll take it slow from here. I don't want them losing us before the cops get here, which they'll do any second."

The light changed, and Mike eased forward cautiously. As he did, he checked the rear view mirror again. The next light was 44th. It was green. He looked back again, to see a yellow rental truck behind him blocking his view. The street here was two lane and no passing. So they couldn't see him either. He began to cross 44th, still glancing in the mirror when he heard the squall of brakes. He looked ahead and saw, to his left a black sedan in the act of running a red light and coming right for him. There was nowhere to go. He was hemmed in by a Jetta in front of him, and the black car was too close for him to dodge, even if he floored it.

The black car, which he now recognized as a Taurus, came to an abrupt halt. There was a woman behind the wheel. With a cell phone in her ear. Mike tried to swallow his heart, thinking that it wouldn't work nearly as well lodged in his throat.

The flash of blue lights and the brief sound of a siren announced the arrival of the police. A cruiser appeared on 44th and pulled up behind the Taurus, Mike watched the patrolmen get out of the cop car and cautiously approach the vehicle. A older man with corporal's stripes on his sleeve walked up on the driver's side and began to talk to the woman. A younger patrolman, a slender black man in his mid twenties, approached the passenger side. "Wait here," Mike said to Gwen. "Lock the doors."

He got out and walked toward the Jetta, fishing his creds out of his coat pocket as he did so. He could hear the woman saying something about being sorry. The older cop was looking at her with that hard face that cops show when listening to a careless driver's excuses. The senior patrolman looked over, saw Mike approaching, and motioned to his partner, who turned around and faced Mike.

"Weston, FBI," he said, holding up his badge. "I'm the one who called you. The car was a Sentra.

"We haven't seen one," the black cop replied. 'We just got here and saw this woman blow through a red light."

Mike started to say something about their response time and he guessed that coffee wasn't going to drink itself when his phone emitted a shrill ringtone that he used for calls from work. He swallowed his witticism and answered it. "Mike Weston"

"It's Shelby. I'm in Command. They've been looking at the street surveillance. Klesko thinks she may have spotted your Sentra. It's parked near 43rd Street, over by Sunset Park."

X

Sunset Park took up one side of 7th Avenue north of Brooklyn's Chinatown. A low stone wall surrounded what was, in the summer, a green grassy lawn that now was covered with snow. A brick building with an observation platform on top offered a splendid view of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue Of Liberty that at the moment was obscured by low clouds, and beyond it was a pool that at the moment was icy cold. The other side of 7th was a nice neighborhood of brownstones rented to people who had moved here so they wouldn't have to look out their windows and see police blocking off their streets to investigate a crime scene.

Mike parked behind a police cruiser and turned to Gwen. "I'm sorry about all this," he said. "We're going to be late."

"Not your fault. Besides, this is interesting. I get to sit here and watch you work. And you do make a terrific bodyguard."

"Thanks. I was just wondering if it was ever like this for Ryan."

"Like what?"

"You know," he said. "People depending on me."

"People have always depended on you."

"Not like this."

"Like what?"

"I kind of have a family now. I hope I'm ready for it,"

"You are." She nodded at the police car ahead. "They're waiting."

"Lock the door."

He got out, fixed his badge wallet to his belt, and approached the two police officers nearest the Sentra.

"Take a look at this," one of the cops said. He pointed at the license plate. "It looks like they dummied up a dealer tag. That thing's not real."

"It's probably stolen," Mike said. "We need to tow it in and search it." He reached for his phone and dialed the Command Center. Shelby answered. "It looks like they faked a license tag," Mike said. "Whoever these people are, they're organized, and they have some skills. Start checking street surveillance. Someone got out of this thing. If we can find them, we can put it through facial recognition."

"I'll get people on it," Shelby replied. "Right now, I want you here. Take Dr Carter home. This constitutes a credible threat, since we don't know who they were after. I'm sending DiPaulo and Burnworth out to handle security for Dr Carter. The Hartford Field Office sent us a laptop. Max wants you to get into it."

"Laptop?"

"Yeah, it belonged to Melissa Canning. Max thinks it might have been hacked."

"I'll be there as soon as I get Gwen home"

XI

"Smooth move, fuckwit. What are you gonna do next, gargle peanut butter?"

The questioner was a pale, chunky man with coal black hair wearing a brown sweater that made him look remarkably like a mudslide. He was driving a white Honda Civic on 5th Avenue and anxiously looking in his rearview mirror for any sign of the police.

His passenger, at whom the question was directed, was pulling back his gray hoodie and removing his cheap drug store shades, revealing long fringes of lank, dark brown hair and a round, well fed face.

"I didn't want to lose him."

"So you blow through a red light and get made."

" Hey, I thought I could beat it."

"Christ. Well, you better tell Kyle that you lost that car. Did you leave anything behind?"

"No."

"Are you sure? You took everything? The gun? The phones?"

"It's all in the bag. What are you doing?"

"Pulling over."

"I can see that."

The driver pulled over in front of a donut shop and pulled out his phone. "Kyle, it's Sarnoff. We've got a problem..."

XII

Mike walked into the Command Center thinking that it might just have been like this for Ryan after all. He'd left Gwen, trusting her safety to others, knowing that there was an unknown number of murderous whack jobs who might have her and/or Max on their radar. Since he'd gotten up this morning the world suddenly seemed a much darker place. He found Shelby standing behind Amy Klesko, who was studying what looked like surveillance footage. Shelby motioned him over.

"Take a look at this," Shelby said. Guy gets out of the car, wearing a watch cap and shades. He ducks into the park. He enters the main building here, and he exits out the side of the building. He's talking on the phone as he does, you can see it right there. He walks around the outside, past the pool, and it looks like he leaves the park at this side entrance, having ditched the watch cap, which he ought to know isn't likely to throw us off. Then he heads on foot up 6th Avenue. He must have called someone to pick him up. They had more than one unit on you. When he got made, he bailed, and his friends picked him up. He must have got suspicious when you started making turns to flush him out."

"And the Sentra?"

"It was stolen from Yonkers the day before yesterday. They were planning something. What? A hit in broad daylight?"

Mike stared at the screen for a moment before answering. "He was trying to get close to me. Or her."

"Who are these goddam people?"

"You got me," Mike replied. "Give me that laptop. Maybe I can start finding out."

XIII

Kyle and Russell sat parked in a spacious lot between a McDonald's that fronted on South Truell Boulevard in Union City and a shopping center. Across the street was a small strip plaza called Big Joey's, and at the end of that was Cardwell's Used Books, Video, and Movies. Russell was munching on some fries while Kyle stared intently at the sidewalk that led around the left end of the plaza.

Kyle looked over at Russell disapprovingly as he stuffed the now empty french fry bag back into the sack it had come in. "How much of that shit can you eat?" he asked.

"It's carb," Russell explained. "I need to think clearly, and the human brain runs on carb."

"And the human gut expands on it."

"It can't run on protein. Or fat."

"Clearly."

"Only carb. There she is. Right on time." Russell pointed across the street as a slender young woman in jeans, a leather jacket, and motorcycle boots walking around the end of the plaza. Jet black hair with traces of purple peeked out from below a black toboggan. "Amanda Dunnigan," Russell added.

"Damn," Kyle said softly. "You have good taste. In bitches, anyway."

"I do. Now notice that we saw her as she crested the hill. That road on the left slopes down. That's what I want to show you. The employee parking in this place is actually under the building. It's under the corner where that used bookstore sits. That road runs past residential apartments, so when they close, it's after dark, and there's not a lot of people on the street. We could take her down there, and if we're quiet, no one sees and no one hears. We knock her out. I'm thinking stun gun or taser. We put her in the trunk of a car, and drive off."

"The only problem with that is that we don't really have good escape routes here."

"What do you mean?" Russell asked. "There's exits right down there that lead to two different roads."

"Yeah, but only on that side. So there's no alternate way out if something goes wrong. North of here you've got a Jewish cemetery and on the other side there's a bunch of narrow streets. We're hemmed in by shops on one side and dead Jews on the other."

"It's perfect. Fast in and fast out."

A shrill ringtone from Kyle's pocket announced a call. He pulled out his phone and examined the screen. "Sarnoff," he announced. "Something's gone wrong." He put the phone to his ear. "Speak," he said. He listened for a moment. "So what did Crenshaw do?" he asked. He sat silent, listening to Sarnoff. . "He blew through a red light," he said, shaking his head sadly at Kyle as he did so. He listened a few moments more. "And he lost the car." He continued to shake his head while breaking out into s joker grin. "Did you get made?" Kyle asked.

Kyle continued to listen for a few minutes. "OK, so Weston is staying with Gwen Carter, right? So you know what to do." Another pause. "We went to a lot of trouble to steal that car. So you have to bring back a scalp. Or some other part of Weston's body. We have a plan to execute. And speaking of execute, tell Crenshaw he needs to not fuck up again." Another pause. "Right. Keep me informed." He disconnected, and put the phone away.

"Sometimes," Kyle said, "I wish I had a trap door to drop people through."

"You'd look goofy in a Mao jacket, and you're really not a cat person. So what about my plan?"

A slow smile spread across Kyle's face. "I think it might just work."

XIV

The laptop Max had sent by courier from Hartford was in Shelby's office. Mike signed the receipt, took it back to his desk, and set to work. He had the room mostly to himself. Jermaine Waller, a black man in his early thirties with a shaved head ans a short beard was typing away at a report of some description, his raid jacket slung over the back of his chair. Mike studied the screen of the laptop intently. He reached for a ball point, intending to make some notes when his phone began playing a few bars of Nothing To Fear by Billy Idol. It was his ringtone for Max. He reached over and connected, putting the phone to his ear.

"Hey, how are you?" he asked.

"Are you OK? Is Gwen Ok?"

"Yeah, she's good."

"When were you going to call and tell me?" Max asked accusingly.

"Well I assumed Gwen would call and tell you, which I'm sure she did, and I had my hands full with..."

"You should have called."

"I'm sorry, " he said absent mindedly as he studied the screen. "I know you're worried, but I was trying to find out what I could. "I've got the laptop in front of me now."

"Listen, I've got an idea. Check her password file and see if she had a Google account."

"I already did that," Mike said. "She did."

"Great. So see if you can log in and access the location history on her phone. If we can figure out where that's been..."

"I already did that," Mike replied. "Whoever hacked this thing got her passwords, got into her Google account, and erased that."

"Damn. OK, then run a scan on that laptop and check for malware. Maybe they planted something on it."

"I already did that too. The laptop is infected with a program called Creepshade. It allowed them to remotely turn on the camera and mike, and it's also a keystroke logger. And it steals passwords."

"They were using the camera to spy on her?"

"Yeah."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and Mike could almost feel the cold rage on the other end of the line. "I want this guy," she said at last.

"Makes two of us."

"Maybe we can trace where the malware came from," Max suggested. "Try scanning through her email for infected links. And check the IP address for whoever posted those pictures of her online. They have to record IP addresses."

"I already did that," he explained patiently. "It looks like the IP address for whoever posted the pictures and created that account was spoofed. We also found some email in her spam folder that looks suspicious, and we're trying to trace that back. There may be some Tor nodes* involved, though. Someone went to a lot of trouble."

" I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't tell you how to do things. I'm worried sick about you and Gwen."

"It's OK. If you makes you feel any better, we're just as worried about you. What's going on at your end?"

"We've been making some calls to get a juvie record unsealed. A guy named Phil Hegstrom. We found out that the record was for animal cruelty. A lot of serial killers commit animal cruelty while they're working their way up to people."

"What put you on to this guy?" Mike asked.

"He lived in the same building as Melissa Canning, and he volunteered a lead that pretty much went nowhere."

"So how are you holding up?", he asked.

"Probably not as good as you."

"Gwen's safe, I promise. You watch your back, OK?"

"I will. And you do the same. Check her Netstat. Look for suspicious connections."

"I was doing that when you called."

"Right. I'm sorry. I love you."

"I love you too. And I'll call you if I find anything."

He disconnected, put down the phone, and reached for a water bottle sitting on the othr side of the desk. As he did so, he noticed Jermaine looking at him and grinning. "What?" Mike asked.

"I didn't say anything."

"Uh huh. I might not be a hundred percent, but I'm well enough to use a keyboard and a mouse. Drive a car, too."

"So I heard."

Mike took a swig of his water, put the bottle down, and studied the open Netstat window in front of him. **

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State

TCP :53 :0 LISTENING

TCP :135 :0 LISTENING

TCP :445 :0 LISTENING

TCP :5357 :0 LISTENING

TCP :53 :443 CLOSE_WAIT

TCP :59393 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59515 :80 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59518 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59522 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59523 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59538 :80 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59539 :80 ESTABLISHED

Nothing looked suspicious. He stared at the screen, thinking that his best bet might be to have another go at tracing the IP Address of whoever had posted those pictures of Melissa canning online. If he could trace that back far enough...

As he stared, the display changed, and a new line appeared.

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State

TCP :53 :0 LISTENING

TCP :135 :0 LISTENING

TCP :445 :0 LISTENING

TCP :5357 :0 LISTENING

TCP :53 :443 CLOSE_WAIT

TCP :59393 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59515 :80 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59518 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59522 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59523 :443 ESTABLISHED

TCP :53 :80 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59538 :80 ESTABLISHED

TCP :59539 :80 ESTABLISHED

He looked at the new line.

TCP :53 :80 ESTABLISHED

Something had established a connection on port 53. He hadn't done anything to cause the computer to try to make an outside connection. So who was on the other end? If someone was receiving data from the laptop, then they couldn't spoof their address. Not if they expected to actually receive data, because the computer had to know where to send it. This computer had been turned into a remote camera to send pictures to a hacker surreptitiously. Was the Creepshade program still active?

Max had told him about the cameras she and Dennis had discovered in her apartment. Not knowing who had been spying on them and who had seen the video of them making love had been devastating to her. He'd come to hate this kind of invasion of privacy with a passion. Was someone planning to victimize he and Max again? Or could Gwen be a target? He thought back to that day, when they'd executed Joe, and he and Max had made a promise to Ryan to look out for each other. Well, that included Gwen now. He'd made a promise to Ryan that he had to keep. Time to start keeping it.

XV

For their first meeting, Harvey had picked pair of crumbing cinder block warehouses near the Hackensack River waterfront. Ryan pulled off the four lane highway a narrow parking lot crowded with semis and pickups. There was no sign over the greenish gray buildings and the opaque windows gave no hint of what might be inside. Ryan recognized Kelso's XTS parked next to a semi. Kelso might be a grifter but he always bought American. Ryan wondered sometimes if he ought to read anything into that.

There was an office at the end of the building heated to just barely warmer than the outside by a kerosene heater. A gas block on the wall sat cold and dark. It might have been out of order, or someone might have forgotten to pay the bill. Given the run down state of the place, either could be true.

Harvey Richmond was there, along with Kelso, and a man with a gray beard and wire rimmed glasses who might have passed for an anorectic version of Santa Claus.

"Victor," Kelso said as Ryan entered. "Glad you could make it. Harvey, this is Victor Mallinson. He's the guy I was telling you about."

"Andy, why don't you wait outside?" Harvey said. Santa Claus shuffled out with seeming reluctance. The rest of the building was probably even colder than this place.

"So," Harvey began, "Kelso tells me you're in the hardware business."

"That's right," Ryan replied.

"And you're having trouble with you suppliers."

"The trouble," Ryan said, "is no suppliers, and no supply. At least not the kind of supply I need."

"Who are you buying for?"

"Some guys down on the border. And no, it's not the cartels. The border is turning completely lawless. There's an endless supply of migrants and an endless supply of drugs. Guy told me he saw a column down there. Like an army. About eight to tem pack mules and maybe a dozen guys with AK-47s. You try to fuck with them, and they can actually get support from the Federales. It's a war down there. I'm talking to some guys who want to start gearing up to fight back. They need full automatic weapons, because the other side has them."

"So you need rifles, AR type, with a fun switch?"

"Right."

"And what else?"

"That's it," Ryan said. "That's all I need from you."

"Ok, then. Three thousand each."

"I can get 'em legally for nine hundred and my people can do the conversions themselves," Ryan countered.

"If that was true, then you'd roll your own," Harvey replied. "But you can't. So the price is three thousand, one third up front. How many do you want?"

Ryan thought for a moment. "I'll only be able to buy fifteen at that price."

"If you've got guns, you can always get more guns. But to get the first fifteen, you have to come up with forty-five K. Can you have that by tomorrow night?"

"Yeah."

"Good. We'll meet here after hours, say, nine pm."

"Here?" Ryan asked. "I'd prefer someplace a little more neutral. There's a marina. Now, Kelso has a boat..."

"What it is is what it is," Harvey interrupted.

"I'm taking a lot on trust," Ryan objected.

"So am I", Harvey replied. "So trust. Or take your business down the street."

Ryan pretended to think for a moment. "OK. Nine tomorrow night."

XVI

Back in his car, Ryan started the engine, and turned up the heat.

"Are you quite certain about this?"

Ryan turned to find Joe sitting in the passenger seat. Joe hadn't been around for a while, in several senses of that term. But Ryan still saw him from time to time, and this was the first time he'd seen him in weeks.

"Certain about what?" Ryan asked.

"You're taking an awful chance. With your own life, and with his. I can't imagine why either of you is doing it."

"I want to go home. Getting Harvey is a step in that direction."

"Kelso is about to go home, or at least to a place where his past associates can't find him. It amazes me that he's willing to throw in with you. That was always your gift, Ryan. You can talk people into anything. You should have sold used cars. Or gone into politics."

"He owes me. And he's trying to do the right thing."

"And you think that murdering the odd replaceable career criminal will help. Perhaps you can talk yourself into anything as well."

"It will help protect the people I love. And it will help get me home."

"And how exactly, will you explain your absence? You haven't thought that through. And how, exactly, will you take Harvey? You haven't really thought that through, either. Your lack of planning will catch up with you."

"When the time comes, I'll be quick."

"I was quicker than you, Ryan, more than once. Look where it got me. We make quite a pair. The quick and the dead."

"Ye of little faith. Don't worry. When the time comes, I won't make a mistake."

"On the contrary, Ryan. That's the story of your life. You keep making the same mistakes."

Musical Interlude - Wasted By Stabbing Westward

=============== Notes ==========

* Tor software was originally created by the CIA to allow agents in the field to communicate online while spoofing their actual locations. It routs messages through a series of nodes in order hide the actual IP address of the sender, making them difficult to locate. In order for CIA agents to be able to use the software in the field, the Agency had to basically release it into the wild where hackers could download and use it, otherwise anyone using Tor could be immediately identified as a CIA operative. Now we're all pretty much stuck with it, and the US intelligence community has itself been hit by hackers using Tor to conceal their location and identity. Edward Snowden, a contractor for the National Security Agency, made extensive use of Tor while leaking to the Russians millions of classified documents and blowing pretty much every source of signals intelligence the US had.

** Netstat is a program in computers that can display connections made with other computers online. Most people never have much occasion to use it, but it can be used to detect hackers. You won't see it displayed on your normal Windows menu since it's accessed through the command line.

27


	5. There's Always Collateral Damage

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated T. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Chapter 5 - There's Always Collateral Damage

Max sat behind a borrowed desk in a tiny cubicle somewhere in the middle of the FBI's cramped office in White Plains, sipping coffee, reading over a copy of Phil Hegstrom's juvie record, and reflecting on how far she had come up in the world. When she'd been a uniform cop in the NYPD, her precinct had been a crumbling brick affair on the Lower East Side with heat that sometimes went out and air conditioning that sometimes worked. The surrounding neighborhood had, she knew, long adapted itself to a not always welcome police presence. She knew, because it had been explained to her by her training officer, that the police owned the ground on which they stood, but beyond that it as a case of here be dragons. The junkies, whores, dealers, pimps, and other exotic street life scattered before the police arrived, as if warned by a jungle telegraph, and then came back out when the coast was clear.

Now she was in the FBI, in a clean shiny office building in a clean shiny upscale neighborhood . The place didn't have that firebase in VC territory feel to it, there weren't meth heads being dragged through the dingy corridors on the way to booking, and the pain wasn't peeling off the walls. On the other hand, back then she'd been dealing with garden variety street rats. They might be unpleasant or sometimes dangerous, but she'd never had to worry that someone was actively hunting her back, much less the people she cared about.

"So what do you think?"

She looked up to see that Dennis had returned with coffee of his own in one hand and a few sheets of printout in the other. He sat down opposite Max, took a swig of coffee, and They'd come to White Plains because it was the closest FBI office to Esher's Ferry, closer than either of the offices in Connecticut, even though Melissa Canning had been killed there. Here they had access to the Bureau's computers, and ff they needed a warrant, this as the closest place to get an application for one started.

"I think I want to ask Phil Hegstrom some pointed questions, but we don't have grounds for a warrant."

"We can talk to him without one. We need a warrant for a search, not for an interview."

"We don't have anything solid. If we talk to him, we let him know he's under suspicion."

"OK, Dennis said, "we can't threaten him with charges and we can't do any kind of a search. So what it we asked him some questions about Lance Jessup? Tell him we think it's Jessup, and ask him for any information he has about Jessup and his personal life. Ask if he has any ideas to contribute. If the spiel he gave us was some sort of way to try to control the investigation, then he'd be open to talking to us. So we get him talking. About anything. About the weather, if he wants to talk about that. But get him talking. And maybe he'll give us something else."

"We might have to do that," Max replied thoughtfully. " But honestly, I think that's a last resort. If he is playing us, he could keep the game going a while before he makes a mistake. If he does make a mistake."

" So maybe we have to hope he makes a mistake," Dennis said. "Or that we can trip him up." Because whoever this is, they're just warming up. By the way, BAU called with a profile." He handed the printout to Max. "They agree with me. Whoever is behind this will contact us and try to control the investigation."

Max scanned over the printout. "Technically skilled, educated, young, anger towards women..." She set the printout down by her coffee cup. "Pretty much what you said." She broke out into a smile. " So what do I need BAU for? I've got you."

She put down the printout, but continued to stare at it as if searching for an answer that wasn't there. "It's weird," she said. "Back when I was a detective, I was just Max. Now I'm Ryan's niece. People compare me to him. And I'm starting to do the same thing. This isn't the first time I've seen serial killers. But the last time, I had Ryan. And I'm starting to wonder if I can really do this the way he could have."

"I don't wonder about that," Dennis said. "Ever. And I don't think Ryan would either."

"No?"

"I never met Ryan. I wish I had. I told myself, when I transferred here, that I'd finally get to meet him. But I never got the chance. I read a lot about him. I don't think he was always sure he could bring it off either. Master Ittei said, 'It is spiritless to think you cannot attain what you have seen the Masters attain. If you think you are inferior, then you will be. First intention, then enlightenment.'"

"Let me guess, " she said. "One of those samurai philosophy books you've read."

"That's right. It's from Hagakure. I studied the culture of the country my ancestors came from. I got curious about my roots."

"Intention and then enlightenment?" she asked, smiling faintly.

"Yeah. It means you persist and you find the answers. We'll find the answer to this."

"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. I think we will talk to Hegstrom, but before we do, I want to see what Mike can find out about that laptop. . If that turns out to be a dry hole, then we can interview Hegstrom and see if we can play him. But we don't have any proof he's involved, so that's plan B. Plan A is to find out who hacked her social media and her laptop. Let's give Mike some more time."

II

Ryan sat in the parking lot of the Bayside Marina in Queens, drinking a cup of chai to warm himself, and watching for Kelso's arrival. He'd parked facing the steel guardrail that separated the marina from the Cross Island Parkway. Trouble, if it came, would come from the road, not from the placid waters of Little Neck Bay behind him. He wasn't sure why Kelso had asked for this meeting, and for all he knew someone had got on to him and was using him to set Ryan up. Kelso hadn't sounded on the phone like he was under duress, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The butt of the big M&P 9mm on his hip had a tendency to get between his body and the car seat and press against his side. The two spare 17 round magazines on his left hip did the same. Not a comfortable way to carry if you were sitting down, but on the off chance that an Organization hit team was on the way, he wanted more ammunition and not less. So he'd put up with the inconvenience.

The long pier jutting into the bay was empty of boats. Kelso had kept a boat here at one time, called the Changin' Latitude, but no one was keeping much of anything tied up at the pier in the freezing cold. Most of the owners had moved their boats to sheds to keep them out of the weather. Ryan wasn't sure what Kelso had done with his. Maybe he'd sold it. Maybe he was planning to sail it off beyond the sunset to whatever retirement from all his dirty deals he'd planned for himself.

He saw a car pulling into the nearly empty lot. Kelso. He watched as Kelso parked a short distance away and got out, alone. Ryan unlocked his car door so Kelso could ease into the passenger seat.

"Thanks for coming out," Kelso said.

"So what's this about?" Ryan asked.

"I need you to postpone this gig with Harv."

"Why?"

"My personal safety. Right now, Harv and his guys know how to find me. You gotta wait until I get clear. The Bureau will deliver my new papers soon, and then I can disappear. If something goes wrong with this caper, I need to be well away from here when it happens."

"What do I tell Harvey?"

"Tell him there's a problem with the money, and you'll have it in a few days."

"And then he decides I'm not reliable and refuses to do business. I'm this close to going home. This is no time to get cold feet."

"You wanna be home for Christmas? Me too. But we need to be alive for Christmas. And when you're this close is exactly when you're most likely to get in a hurry and screw up."

"I'm not gonna screw up."

"You're screwing up now, Ryan. This plan of your will be failure if we both die. Wait until I'm away. Then you can do whatever you like."

"I can't."

"You mean you won't. One phone call from me. That's all it would take. I call Harv, and tell him I'm having second thoughts about you."

"Don't do that."

"Even in a one man war, there's always collateral damage. You ever think about that? I do not plan to end up as your fucking collateral damage."

"When I take 'em down, and I will take 'em down, there's not gonna be anyone coming after either one of us."

"Do you why I picked this place to meet?" Kelso asked.

"Because you like boats?"

"No," Kelso replied. "I picked it because of the vidcams." He pointed at one of the poles around the perimeter of the parking lot sporting cameras on top and signs warning of video surveillance. "You can't waste me here if you decide I'm a liability to your crusade."

"I wouldn't do that," Ryan objected.

"Like hell you wouldn't. This is your new obsession. I think this is the one that finally gets you killed."

"If you were worried about getting clear, why did you agree to help me?" Ryan asked.

Kelso gave a humorless smile. "Actually, I didn't do it for you. I did it for Max. I knew you were cocked and locked to go after Harvey whether I helped you or not. And I couldn't face her knowing that you threw your life away and I stood there and watched. Have a nice fucking day." he got out, slammed the door behind him, and walked back to his car.

III

Kyle piloted his BMW through heavy traffic on North Bergen Boulevard, headed for Jersey Turnpike and home. "So when do you want to do it?" he asked.

Russell looked up from his phone and put it back in his pocket. "She's working late tonight. They're shorthanded. So she'll be there at closing. After this, they may be changing her hours. I got that from one of the other employees. The guy with the black nail polish and mascara. I know it's short notice, but is there anyway we could go tonight?"

"You weren't asking about her hours, were you?" Kyle asked sharply.

"No. I was asking about mascara guy's hours. And the conversation went from there. We have a common interest in horror movies. So it makes for a way to have conversation with him, and pick up information. Could we get a team together for tonight?"

"I'll see who we can get. I figure we need three at a minimum. Two for the grab and a driver."

"Can we take her to your Dad's basement?"

"No. He's home right now. We'll have to take her to Foley's."

"I bet your place has more amenities."

"It does," Kyle said. But it's not an option. By the way, I can't be there tonight, so I'll get you two other guys."

"Plans?" Russell asked.

"Maybe. Foley should available tonight. He can drive. I'll get you some backup. I'll call around and see who's available. And uh...enjoy yourself."

"Oh I plan to."

IV

Mike entered the suspicious IP address that Marissa Canning's computer has established a connection to in the search box on the monitor in front of him. Tracing the general location of an IP address was easy enough, and anyone could do it online with a few keystrokes. But getting a specific name and address required the cooperation of the person's internet service provider. The FBI had it's own tools for an approximate location, they didn't have to rely on commercial web sites for that. But getting the ISP to cough up a name, if they could trace it that far took a warrant, if the ISP was in the US. If the person was overseas in a friendly country, it was more complicated, as they either had to work through the government in that country or rely one of the other three letter agencies to trace the person down surreptitiously. If the person they sought was in an enemy country, then there was likely no hope of getting cooperation from the locals, and even the spooks might not be able to nail the person's location.

At the moment even the first step was taking too long, because the computers were running slow for some reason, and when he hit enter, he found himself staring at a small blue circle spinning on the screen like a tiny vortex pulling his time down the drain.

He heard Jermaine mumbling obscenities at the screen. "Your computer running slow too?" Mike asked.

"That, and John," Jermaine said. I'm going over my notes from an interview we did yesterday. He wants to pencil whip this 320* to help us get a warrant for a wiretap."

"Tell him no," Mike replied. "If he argues change that to hell no."

Jermaine looked at Mike skeptically. "I thought you had a rep for playing fast and loose with the rules."

"Not any more. That was then. This is now. I'm officially starting over."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"You're gonna see it."

"So what brought this on?"

"A whole lot of time recovering. Thinking things over. And deciding that I'd really had my last chance. And I..." A map appeared on his monitor with a location marked on it. "Got it!" he said.

He reached for the phone on his desk and called Shelby. "Sir, that laptop is connected to a computer in Esher's Ferry. The ISP is Aethirion. We need to get a warrant for a trace."

"We'll get it," Shelby replied. "Good work. Call Max, update her. Where is she right now?"

"The White Plains office."

"As soon as this warrant arrives, you get on that trace. Tell Max to hold where she is and be ready to move the moment we tag this guy."

V

Harvey polished off the last of his pancakes and sat for a moment, looking out the dining room window at snow covered trees beyond. Kyle had left early that morning, before he'd gotten a chance to speak to him. Kyle had been even more withdrawn than ususal of late. If it was simply a question of Kyle packing up and leaving the nest for good, it wouldn't be unusual, but Kyle's job, such as it was, didn't pay enough for him to live on his own, at least not in anything like the style to which he was accustomed. His complaints about lack of success with women, once incessant, had ceased quite some time ago. Harvey wondered sometimes if this meant that things had improved, but he hadn't seen a girl or heard Kyle speak of one.

He'd told Kyle several times that it was just a passing phase, and that things would improve for him. But they hadn't, and Harvey had, for time, considered getting his son into some sort of therapy. He hadn't done so, mostly because he feared burdening Kyle with the stigma of mental illness. Harvey knew too much about how poorly confidential data was protected to think that any record of mental illness would remain confidential indefinitely. Kyle would get better. He was a decent looking kid, and he'd pull out of this eventually. He had to.

Harvey had some paperwork he'd brought home waiting in his study. He also needed to make a call to one of his guys and get this Victor Mallinson's gun order in the works. He'd specified AR type rifles. Those were harder to get than Kalashnikovs, which the world was awash in. You could pick those up anywhere and smuggle them back to the States. But the AR was readily available, at least in semiautomatic. But Harvey was now making available in full auto under the counter. Harvey's guys could buy them from the worthless armies and paramilitaries that America equipped across the Middle East. Some of them were as likely to sell their rifles as to fire them in combat. And the American contractors that Harvey supplied could sometimes be persuaded to lose or break theirs for a suitable fee.

He picked up his coffee cup, leaving the dirty dishes on the table, and walked to his study. He set the cup down on his desk, and pressed the button to bring his computer up from sleep mode. He needed to review some payments he'd made to his network of illegal weapon suppliers. That wasn't kept on his computer, but rather on an encrypted hard drive that he kept in his safe. His illegal weapon sales were profitable, but they weren't authorized by the Organization, which preferred that its members keep as low a profile as possible. If he were caught, the Government might offer him a deal if he would rat on his associates. So the Organization preferred that he content himself with what they paid him, and the pleasures of the House they allowed him, and not do anything on the side that might get him caught.

Disregarding their warnings could be fatal, he knew, but the money was good, and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to get caught.

He went to the safe, pulled back the panel that concealed it, and punched in the combination. He opened the safe, and took out the portable hard drive in its black nylon case. As he was about to close th safe back up, he noticed that the bracelet, which had been on top of an envelope containing some cash, was missing.

He frantically empties the safe of its contents, putting everything on his desk and sorting through it all repeatedly. The bracelet itself was not in and of itself incriminating, but admitting that he had lost it would constitute prima facie evidence of carelessness on his part. And the woman in charge of security for the Organization could be remarkably unforgiving.

What had happened? The help had all been carefully vetted, and none of them had the combination. There were two possibilities, then. One was that the bracelet had been removed by a burglar who new what he was looking for. That implied a massive failure security, both his and the Organization's. But the more he thought about it, the more impossible it seemed. There was a state of the art security system. No security system was foolproof, but even if someone had the skills, how could they know precisely where he kept it? He'd never shared that information with anyone.

That left the other possibility. Kyle had somehow gotten in here, removed the bracelet, and then left with it early this morning. Harvey reached into his pants pocket and took out his cell phone.

VI

Mike looked up from the terminal he had moved to in the Command Center to find Dan Shelby standing practically behind him. He'd been so intent on the screen in front of him that he hadn't seen Shelby enter. Shelby was supposed to have been in submarines a long time ago. Mike wondered if submarine sailors had a knack for walking quietly.

"Show me," Shelby said.

Mike pointed at the map displayed on the monitor in front of him. "It's Phil Hegstrom. Just like Max thought. We've been able to trace the location to Hegstrom's apartment on campus. Apparently the Creepshade malware that Hegstrom hacked into Melissa Canning's laptop is still active and still trying to phone home. It must have stolen her passwords, and that's how he hacked her social media."

"And he doesn't know it's still active?" Shelby asked incredulously.

"Maybe he thinks it's switched off. Or maybe he doesn't realize that we've found it."

"Good job." He turned to Amy Klesko, sitting next to Mike. "Get Max on the line. Put her on speaker."

V

Max picked up her phone from the desk in front of her and checked the screen. "This might be it," she said to Dennis. She connected, put the phone on speaker, and set it down in front of her.

"Max Hardy," she said.

"Mike's hit paydirt," Shelby said. "The feed from that laptop was going straight to Phil Hegstrom's computer. He's the guy. Or at least one of the guys. We can get an arrest warrant..."

"No," she interrupted. "We can't do that. If we bust him, we tip our hand. They'll all go to ground. We have to get the whole group. If we arrest Hegstrom, we can't make any kind of deal with him. He's guilty of murder one, so at best he's looking at life without. Even if he cooperated, by the time he did it might be too late. They'll scatter. We need to put Hegstrom under surveillance. We need a warrant all right, but we need a warrant for a wiretap. His phone and his internet. And we need surveillance on him. Round the clock, multiple units, and a GPS on his car. You have to get us the bodies."

"We can get a tap, but they're probably using burners," Shelby said.

"It doesn't matter." she replied. "We have to start somewhere. Whoever he's working with is probably someone he knows socially. We have to see who he's talking to. What he's doing. It might be the only way to get to the other members of his group."

Silence on the other end of the line for a moment. In the background, she could hear Mike's voice. "Sir, I think she's right."

"OK," Shelby said. "I'll get a warrant for a wiretap. As for surveillance, that's not a problem. I've already been on the phone with Washington. . They want these people, and they'll write us a blank check. Personnel, equipment, anything you need I can get. We'll be all over this guy by sundown."

VI

Shelby disconnected and started placing another call.

"Sir..." Mike began

"Yes?"

"If it's OK with you, I'd like to get on one of the surveillance teams."

"You're not cleared for full duty."

"I can drive. I can watch..."

"Sorry, but no. From what I've been told, those back muscles need time to fully heal before you can put too much strain on them."

"My medical is supposed to confidential," Mike objected.

"Between you, me and the four walls, I got that from Max. She said you'd come to me asking to get back in the field before the doctors cleared it. And she made me promise that the answer would be no. Look, I know it sucks, but if something went down, and you hurt yourself, I'd be in deep shit. With HR, and with Max. I'm not entirely sure which one of those would be worse.. If you want to help, you can help right here. Start making phone calls. We need Hegstrom's class schedule, and you can start calling around. White Plains, Hartford, every office in the area. Start shaking people loose. I'll start getting some people together from here. Max and Fuchida need reinforcements. Let's see that they get 'em."

He handed the phone to Mike, and walked off in the direction of his office. Mike sat down at the terminal, cursing under his breath, and began looking up the number for Marston University.

VII

Kyle pulled into a parking space near the coffee shop where he had picked Russell up earlier. "Make sure you take all this crap out of my car," he said, indicating two empty paper bags that had held the fast food Russell had consumed along the way.

"I will. Do me favor. Whoever you send tonight, don't make it fucking Crenshaw."

"Don't worry, I won't. I'm pretty sure Hegstrom's available. Besides, Crenshaw needs to redeem himself. He and Sarnoff still have a job to finish. Between you, Foley, and Hegstrom, you should be able to handle it."

"Why can't you be there?"

"Reasons."

"Well that's very helpful and specific."

"I have to be mysterious. I'm the planner. The brains of this operation."

"Uh huh. Did your plan include losing that car this morning?"

'The car isn't traceable. You know what Crenshaw's problem really is?"

'What?"

"He's unfocused because he doesn't hate them enough. Hate is a necessary thing for guys in our position. I'll tell you something. There's two kinds of leaders who change the world. The ones who deal in hope and the ones who deal in hate. You can get ahead with either one. My advantage is that I've got both. Guys sign up because they've lost hope. I give them hope that they can do the hurting for a change. You know that guy who talked about the audacity of hope? Well he didn't know shit. It's the audacity of hate. When you realize you really can strike out at them."

"Whatever," Russell said. "Just promise me that you'll have the audacity to call Hegstrom."

"I will," Kyle assured him. "Cross my heart and hope to spit."

Russell out, taking his empty sacks with him, and began walking back towards the deck. Kyle eased out into the traffic, and was headed towards home when his phone rang. He pulled back over to the side, parking in front of a meter that had no intention of feeding because this was only going to take a few minutes. By the time he pulled out his phone and looked at the screen, it had already quit ringing, but he had a voice mail, and it wasn't hard to guess who it was from.

"Hi Dad," he said.

"Where are you?" His father asked.

"On the way home."

"From where?"

"I don't think you really called to ask where I am. I'm kind of old for that anyway."

"But not too old to live at home, apparently."

"Part time," Kyle corrected. "Did you call to complain about how much money I'm costing?"

"I called to ask you if you'd been in my study."

"If you called to ask about that, then I sort of think you already know. And we probably don't need to be talking about this on the phone."

"We probably don't," Harvey agreed. "So when are we going to talk about it?"

"As soon as I get home," Kyle said. "Which is where I'm headed now."

"And when will you get here?"

"It'll take a while. But I promise I'll be home in time for supper."

"I'll look forward to it," Harvey said acidly Make sure you wash up first."

VIII

Phil Hegstrom stepped out of Professor McDowell's Greek Epic Poetry class, and walked down the stairs to the ground floor. As he reached the lobby, the burner phone he carried emitted a beep indicating that he had a text. He pulled the phone out of his jeans and read the message.

We're picking up a package tonight. Be at the junkyard at 8. R has the details.

He deleted the message, and slipped the phone back into his jeans pocket. He paused to zip up his coat against the cold outside and stepped through the double doors fading afternoon sunlight filtered by a thin, high layer of overcast The sidewalk outside was crowded with students leaving class. He had a long walk to his car. As he walked, he imagined the evening to come. A package meant an abduction. So ir was probably Russell's turn. Well, the brothers had coe through for him, and now he'd do the same. He paused to take a pair of sunglasses out of the pocket of his coat. He walked with his head slightly down, lost in his thoughts. He didn't notice the olive skinned woman in a gray and black insulated hoodie with a book bag slung over her shoulder standing beneath a tree at he edge of the nearby parking lot. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, and the warm hood pulled over her head concealed the earpiece she wore.

"He's coming out now," Kenya Welles said.

"You get the GPS on his car?" She recognized Max Hardy's voice in her ear.

"It's in the wheel well," Kenya replied. Max, she knew, was a safe distance away, since she couldn't take a chance on being recognized.

"Copy," Max replied.

The hunt was on.

IX

"This is fucking retarded," Sarnoff complained. "All you had to do was bump him from behind, get out, and then do him with that pistol Kyle gave us, with the silencer. Then drop the pistol, and we'd be out of there. Now we gotta try to take him on the street, when he's walking back to that bitch's apartment."

"So we'll do him on the street," Crenshaw replied.

"Yeah, and there's gonna be vidcams, and maybe witnesses. Shit, they're probably looking for us right now."

They were walking between two rows of brownstone style architecture, some of them clad in actual brownstone. All of them featured steep staircases in front that once kept the entrances above the horse manure in the streets, and which now were just scenic. Except, of course in the winter, when they also became dangerous if the owners didn't keep them salted and shoveled off.

"I wore a disguise," Crenshaw argued.

"I don't care if you were wearing a rubber nose with Groucho glasses. By now they've got pictures of you all over hell."

"So what do you want to do?" Crenshaw asked. "Go back to Kyle and tell him that the show's off?"

Sarnoff thought for a moment. "No. I don't want to do that. Look, if we fuck this up, we're likely to go to bottom of the rotation. We'll both of us lose our turn. And I'm tired of waiting. He's staying with Gwen Carter. Who now has bodyguards courtesy of the FBI. Weston is going to come back here after work, and he's still not on full duty, or he'd be with Max Hardy instead of babysitting Doctor Carter. So that gives us an edge. If we catch him walking back to her place, and we do know where that is..."

"But we don't know when. Or what direction he'll come from."

"That 24 hour deck," Sarnoff said. "Right down there. It's the closest. So here's what we do..."

X

Max sat in a the cold unmarked FBI car, her arms folded in front of her. They's left the engine off for a while, to avoid looking suspicious. Actually, she and Dennis were parked two blocks from the Chinese restaurant where, according to Kenya Welles, Phil Hegstrom was having dinner. She'd stuffed a few energy bars into her pockets, and that would have to do for now. For Max and Dennis, dinner was likely to be late.

"Relax", Dennis said from the passenger seat.

"I am relaxed."

"No you're not. This could go on for days, maybe longer."

"I know."

"You don't need to worry about Gwen. Or Mike."

"I like worrying. It keeps me warm. And I worry about me too. Did the Masters ever worry about screwing up?"

"They were human too."

"So they worried."

"Not so much. They just did their best."

"This is Husky Four ," A man's voice said on the radio. "He's coming out, and heading for his car." Husky Four was the call sign for Welles and another agent named Fouts. Max and Dennis were Husky Five.

"Copy", Max said. A few minutes later came the word that Hegstrom had gotten on highway 9 south and was headed towards New York City,

XI

Harvey Richmond was pacing a bare spot in the plush carpeting of his living room when Kyle finally returned. He could smell the Apricot chicken all over the house, and he'd been smelling it for hours. The blend of spices bordered on aroma therapy, but even so nerves had twisted his stomach into knots until he had no appetite.

He heard the door from the garage open, and he heard Kyle exchange a few words with Juanita, and then a few minutes later, he appeared in the doorway.

"Smells delicious," Kyle remarked casually. "I'll make to wash up before we eat. When are we eating anyway?"

"We need to talk," Harvey said.

"OK," Kyle replied. "Is this something we can talk about when the help is around, or should we have some privacy?"

"My study."

Inside the study, with the door closed, Harvey turned to his son, trying to put on his best mask of fatherly authority, suspecting it wasn't going to be nearly good enough. "Well?" he asked.

Kyle pointed in the direction of the camera that had caught his father in the act of opening the safe. "The camera's up there," he said. I saw you open the safe, and then I was able to open it to. You aren't nearly as discreet as you think you are."

He paused, waiting for his father to say something, and continued when no answer came. "That guy. What was his name? Mills. You were both here, and you had been drinking. You offered to get him in. You wanted to do business with him. The help had all gone home for the day, but I came in. Quietly. I didn't have a car that night, and Phil brought me home. You didn't notice me. Not that you ever did. But I heard some of what you were talking about. You could get him into your serial killer organization. You wanted him to sign a contract. Some businesses offer door prizes to a lucky customer. You offered that guy the chance to rape and murder women.

"I wondered if it could be true, and when I decided it was, I thought about it. No one would ever offer me a chance to join. I'm no one important, even if I am your son. But I thought a lot about my situation. The bitches all reject me. But the bitches the Organization takes...they don't get a chance to say no. You don't ask, you take. Or rather, you pay them to take victims for you.

"So the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if they could do it, then so could I. If I couldn't join their organization, I'd make my own. From guys like me. So I created Ellion. You recognize the name?"

Harvey shook his head silently.

"Elliot Rodger. The Supreme Gentleman. Isla Vista, last year. Ring any bells? He had the right idea, but the wrong means. He needed guys to help him. In the end, he despaired. So what he did was basically an act of self destruction. A lot of people think that what drove his rage was that he couldn't get a girl. Couldn't get laid. Actually, I think part of it was that he panicked when he realized he was a closet homo. He was way too enthusiastic cutting up the guys he lived with for it not to have been sexual. But the point is that in the end he was committing suicide, and he knew it.

"But he became a hero to a lot of guys on the net. And I realized that if I could reach out to those guys, just find the right ones, I'd have a whole support system. An organization of my own.

"So I created this Red Pill web site called Enlightened Gentlemen. The idea was that I would publish my manifesto. My writings on how unfair things are for men today. On how we're denied our birthright. And there would be forums and discussions. Over time, I picked out guys who were posting there as likely prospects. Guys who were angry enough, and desperate enough to work with me, and I reached out to them. And So Ellion was born. And together, we could take what we wanted. Any woman we wanted. But unlike that poor bastard in Isla Vista, we wouldn't be spree killers who kill and die. We'd be successful and powerful. Predators at the top of the food chain. Serial killers who could reach out and strike at will.

"And we wouldn't have to commit suicide like he did. I...we...could take what we wanted. Over and over and over again. And now...it's what I live for. And before you lecture me, I'll point out that you're up to your ass in exactly the same thing. The only difference is that other people provide victims for you. Powerful, well connected people. Me, on the other hand, I do for myself. Like you always said I should."

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"True. You wanted me to grow up to be respectable. But in fact I do command respect. In some circles, anyway."

"You're gonna get caught. You don't know what you're doing. The people I work with are professionals..."

"No appeal to morality?" Kyle asked. "No Father Knows Best lecture? No speech about do as I say not as I do? And aren't you the least bit curious why I took your precious?"

"Why?"

"It occurred to me that one day I might just need a go to shit plan. Maybe I might need a place to run to. Or maybe, just maybe, in a worst case, information to trade."

"You're insane. Do you have any idea what these people will do to the both of us? If you think they'll take you in when you have the police or the FBI on your tail, you are sadly mistaken. And if you think you can blackmail them when they don't..."

"It's an in extremis emergency plan," Kyle explained cheerfully. "Hopefully I'll never have to use it. But honestly, it is fun watching you squirm just thinking about it."

"In other words, this I simply a way of striking at me. What did I do?"

"Nothing. And that's kind of the problem isn't it?"

"I told you," Harvey exploded. "That it was up to you. That you had to do something to help yourself..."

"But I am," Kyle countered. "That's why we're having this conversation. And if I may say so, it is nice to have a heart to heart father and son conversation. After being ignored so often..."

"Jesus Christ! Kyle, you are in way the hell over your head. Hand that goddam bracelet over, now!"

"Or I'm in big trouble?"

"You're in big trouble all right. And this time, it's gonna go way beyond getting grounded."

The back pocket of Kyle's jeans emitted a ringtone. He pulled the phone out and held it to his ear. "Speak," he said.

Kyle listened for a minute or so, eyeing his father as he did so. "Ok," he said at last. "Thanks for calling. "I'll notify the others. And I'm on my way."

He pocketed the phone. "Sorry, but this talk will have to wait. Business. You know how it is."

"Where are you going?"

"Well, maybe I'm going to need that bracelet sooner than I thought. You see, it's kind of a good news bad news situation. The bad news is that apparently they are on to us. And the good news is that I might just have a chance to get the woman of my dreams."

XII

They'd been on Highway 9 for a long time, and were now headed into the industrial part of Newark. The trailing units took turns keeping Hegstrom's car in sight. Given that it was night, all he'd likely see in his read view mirror was a set of headlights, and since there was plenty of other traffic, one set of headlights looked pretty much like the rest, but even so, the FBI agents swapped positions regularly to minimize ther isk of being made. Just south of the Passaic River, Max and Dennis moved into the lead position again, putting them just a few car lengths behind Hegstrom.

"Easy," Dennis warned Max. "You're getting awful close."

"We're getting close to the expressway," Max replied, and there's a bunch of exits. I don't want to lose him."

"We're not gonna lose him. We've got a tracker on him, and Shelby's got a chopper on call if we need one."

Max slowed down, and began to drop slowly back.

"That's it, " Dennis said. "We can still see him from back here."

Max nodded wordlessly. "What the hell's he doing all the way down here?"

"Beats me. Not exactly a college guy type area."

"Turn signal," she said. "He's taking that exit."

Dennis picked up the radio mike and keyed it. "All units, this is Husky Five, he's turning off onto Woodrow Avenue."

Max continues to drop back, not wanting to be seen taking the same exit. She'd let him pull ahead and get out of sight rather than risk alerting him. By the time she had turned and got to the bottom of the ramp, Hegstrom was nowhere to be seen. "Which way?" she asked Dennis.

"Left," Dennis replied, looking at the GPS. He keyed the mike again. "All units, this is Husky Five, he's southbound on Woodrow."

Max sped up slightly, wanting to get Hegstrom back in sight. "Looks like he's stopping up ahead of us," Dennis said. There were security fences on either side of the road here. On the left was a company called Pressed Steel International that claimed to be building a better tomorrow. On the right was Industrial Resin Inc, whose fence was festooned with signs warning of video surveillance.

'We're gaining on him," Dennis announced. 'I think he's stopped." Ahead on the left, they could see, above a high security fence, junk cars, some of them clearly wrecked, on lifts. The sign in front proclaimed the place to be Foley's Used Auto Parts.

"Where is he?" she asked. "I don't see him."

"Stopped. Behind that fence, I think."

"You know what?" she asked. "I think I know what happened to Melissa Canning's car."

XIII

Mike pulled into a parking space on the second floor of the deck down the street from Gwen's apartment, got out, locked his car, and began the long cold walk back to Gwen's couch, brooding over his enforced separation from Max. He'd considered just getting in the car and driving to Esher's Ferry. He could find her easily enough listening to the Bureau's radio net. Except that he'd have to explain his lateness to Gwen, who would rat him out to Max if she guessed, and he would have to answer to Shelby for having taken a Bureau car on an unauthorized trip. And somewhere along the line, he'd have to face Max, who would surely disapprove. He wondered if his long, painful convalescence had taken something from him. A year ago, he would have gone, consequences be damned.

And Ryan would have gone too.

 _Maybe it's all taken something out of me, and I'm not the man I was._

He'd considered sticking around the Command Center and following the action from there, but decided that he'd feel even more useless sitting around staring at a screen. For some reason the thought of that made him think of his fathers's murder at Mark Gray's hands. Besides, if he couldn't be with Max, he'd be with Gwen. That was something, at least.

He pulled his coat closed against the cold, but left it unzipped. He could carry a gun again, even if he wasn't on full duty, that business with the tail this morning had caused his paranoia to ratchet up several notches, and damned if he'd get ambushed in another parking deck. So as cold as it was, the coat would stay open until he was inside the apartment, and his right hand would stay poised to sweep it aside so that he could instantly draw. He looked around him, seeing no one else around, and started down the staircase to the ground floor. He reached the street level entrance and stepped wide around the corner onto the darkened street outside.

Traffic was light, and there weren't a lot of people out. As he stepped out onto the street, he was distracted by the flash of a cigarette lighter. He looked and saw a scruffy, thickset young man lighting up just outside the parking deck. He had the flame on his lighter dialed up to weenie roast. Maybe he was planning to use it ro keep himself warm in the early evening chill.

As he made his way down the sidewalk, he saw another young man standing at a bike rack turn and start walking towards him. He had a paper bag clutched in his left hand. A bag big enough for a bottle of beer, maybe. As the distance closed, Mike noticed twp things. First, the man was looking straight at him, and focused intently on him. Second, he was moving like he had a purpose, straight at Mike.

 _A panhandler, maybe. Those guys try to walk right up on you, because it's intimidating._

 _Or a mugger._

It was the crunching sound behind him that resolved the issue. Panhandlers work alone. Muggers often work in pairs.

He glanced behind him, and saw the man with the cigarette lighter was moving up behind him, and he was closing fast. He'd stepped on something, a bit of crusty ice on the sidewalk, or salt maybe.

 _No, not a mugging either. That lighter was a signal._

Mike pivoted to the left and stepped back in an attempt to get both men in his front view. The man holding the bag was now reaching into it, and no, he wasn't reaching for a pint of booze. .

The other man swung at him, and at first Mike thought he was throwing a punch. He threw his left elbow up to block. The impact on his left arm felt like a sledgehammer. . He'd been hit with something, a sap maybe, and the guy had been aiming for his head.

The man who had just sapped him shouted "Shoot him!". The guy with the bag was standing still, apparently surprised that Mike wasn't on the ground helpless, like he was supposed to be. The guy with the sap was closer, and determined to see that Mike ended up unconscious on the pavement after all. He swung again. Mike grabbed the guy's wrist with his left hand, and with his right hand seized the man's triceps. He pulled hard on the man's arm. The man was far too big and heavy to be pulled off balance easily, or even moved very much, but that wasn't Mike's goal anyway. Mike pulled himself up the heavier man's arm like a kid pulling on a rope in tug of war. He scooted in behind the man and seized him in a rear choke hold.

The man dropped the sap and reached up to try to pry Mike's arms away from his throat.. Mike leaned back, intending to bend the guy back and get him off balance. If he didn't, Mike might find himself flipped. . As he pulled the man's bulk backwards, Mike felt something in his back pop. For a second, he felt Mark Gray's knife in his back all over again. He released the man's neck and staggered backwards, trying to maintain his balance. The man he'd choked lost his footing and went down hard, but now Mike was facing a second opponent. His left arm hurt like hell, and Mark was still stabbing him. He was hurt too bad to fight even one of these guys hand to hand, much less two.

The other man unfroze and began fumbling with something in that bag, and out came the gun they'd been planning to shoot Mike with while he was helpless on the ground, a slim little automatic with a silencer screwed onto the end. Mike's back muscles wouldn't respond to his brain's commands with Mark's knife in them. He lost his balance and fell backwards, hitting the pavement hard, and Mark's knife became rusty and sprouted a sawtooth edge. The man fired once. His bullet passed over Mike's head and ricocheted off the sidewalk. Mike drew his Glock and fired one handed, four shots. His attacker dropped the pistol, staggered, and fell to the ground.

Mike lay there, his Glock in his right hand and his throbbing left arm by his side. The man he'd shot lay bleeding on the pavement, the other sat there stunned, a look of amazement on his face. Mike took stock, and decided that pretty much everything hurt, and that the cold pavement was going to leach every bit of warmth from his body if he lay there long enough.

"I guess I'm well enough to pull a trigger," he said.

Musical Interlude - "It Was You" by Deadbolt

============= Notes ===============

* The FBI does not make audio or video recordings of interviews. Agents file a written report of interviews known as a 320. Since making false statements to an FBI agent in an interview is a crime, and since the only record of what is said in an interview is what the FBI agents write down, simply talking to the FBI can place a person in legal jeopardy if the FBI decides to put the screws to them. No, I'm not making this up.

Eliot Rodger

Eliot Rodger murdered six people and injured fourteen more in a murder/suicide rampage on May 23rd, 2014 in Isla Vista, California. He left behind a hate filled rant on video, which YouTube has almost certainly pulled, but which you might be able to find if you hunt around for it - which I do not recommend doing. He also left behind a "manifesto" called "My Twisted World" in which he described his rage and frustration at being a 22 year old virgin and apparently unable to succeed with women. Rodger was, in fact, rather good looking, but apparently had extremely poor social skills and a range of mental health issues as well.

After Rodger's death, he became a kind of hero to a misguided subset of romantically and sexually unsuccessful men, some of whom took to calling him "The Supreme Gentleman" and "Saint Eliot". Rodger described himself as an "incel", a word coined years earlier by a woman to describe people unable to find partners but which, since Rodger's death, has become synonymous with angry, resentful, sexually unsuccessful men.

So called "Red Pill" web sites offer men advice on how to succeed with women. (There are also "Black Pill" web sites that explain why men can't succeed with women. Yes, you read that right, and it's too complicated to explain.) They also offer political and social commentary, mostly from an alt-right sort of perspective. The advice they offer can, in some cases, be quite good, such as the need for self improvement, but it can come bound up with less positive things as well. Reading Red Pill web sites is a bit like panning for gold. There are some nuggets of good advice to be had, but you'll be sifting through quite a bit mud while you look for them.

When I sat down to write this fic, I had a problem. The Following was hard on supporting characters. Nearly all of them died, even the ones the audience liked a great deal. So the problem was that with almost everyone dead, I was basically out of canon villains, so the villains in this fic were nearly all going to be original characters. Joe had his cult, but they're all dead, and Lily had her family, and they're all dead, and the serial killer Organization that Ryan went to war with wasn't an option , so what was I to do? I needed some serial killers. So what could lead to the formation of a ring of serial killers for Max and Mike to take on? And how could Ryan be involved?

The point is that this fic took the form it did because it gave me a way to create a serial killer cult from scratch and still get the reader to suspend disbelief. (I hope!) It's not meant to be a commentary on incels, or Red Pill, or anything else. I have opinions on these topics and many others besides, but I'm here to entertain (hopefully), not use ffn as a soapbox.

21


	6. No Matter What It Takes

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Note: I know it's been just one hell of a long time since this fic was updated. When it first went up, the number of hits was so small that for a while I took it down, but was persuaded to put it back up again. After that some personal issues and a long case of writer's block meant that it became a low priority.

Hits are still relatively few in number, but lately they've picked up a little. On the off chance that someone actually wants to read the rest of this I've decided that it needs to be finished. There's one more chapter to come, and I swear it won't take as long as this one did.

As always, feedback, positive and negative, is welcome.

Chapter 6 - No Matter What It Takes

Foley's was a an acre of wrecked cars on stackers three deep surrounded by a metal fence topped with razor wire. The scavengers in this part of Newark were pretty enterprising. A car that broke down on the street in the morning could be stripped by the close of business. It would take longer than a day to strip a mass of scrap metal and car parts the size of Foley's, but maybe not all that much longer, so from the outside the place looked like a prison.

Russell Goers had called ahead moments before his arrival so the gate was open for him, and it slid shut as soon as he was inside. There were three buildings on the property. The smallest, a two story cinder block affair in the corner, served as the business office, and there was a door on the street that opened for customers during business hours. On the other side of the lot were two larger buildings. One was a workshop where cars were taken apart, the other a warehouse where parts awaiting sale were stored. That building also had street entrances for customers to pick up their merchandise.

Russ parked behind the business office, squeezing in between a gray Expedition that he recognized as Foley's and an unfamiliar blue Corolla with the Clear Cote turning white and flaking off. It wasn't quite ready to be recycled into parts like most of the vehicles on the lot, but it was getting there.

He saw no lights in the window of the office building. It was well past closing time anyway He walked towards the workshop, where he could see light coming through a window. That should be Foley, and whoever belonged to the Corolla.

Foley had a hanging gut that meant he probably hadn't seen his feet anytime recently, and brown hair worn in a pompadour. He was, as far as Russ knew, the oldest member of Ellion that Kyle had recruited to date, and he was the only member who had been married. Russell suspected that Kyle had recruited him mainly for his car parts business. Foley occasionally dealt with car thieves, which gave Ellion a source of deniable vehicles and a way to dispose of cars that belonged to victims. A big chunk of whatever money he made from his car parts business went to his ex, and when his turn came to take a victim, he had chosen his ex's divorce lawyer. Russell had helped with that one, and he had watched the attorney, a slender brunette in her mid thirties, die slowly in the workshop. Foley's power tools, it turned out, could be used to take apart things besides cars.

As he entered the workshop building, Russell found Foley coming out with a canvas bag that Russell knew contained zip ties, a taser, duct tape, a black hood, and other equipment useful in taking captives.

"Whose car?" Russell asked, nodding in the general direction of the Corolla.

"Phil Hegstrom," Foley explained. "He got here early. He's anxious to get started."

"Makes two of us. Where is he?'

"In the can," Foley explained. "But we aren't going yet."

"Why not? We have to get there before they close."

"Kyle sent a text. He said wait. He's sending someone else. We don't go until he gets here."

"We only need three guys."

"Whoever he's sending has a message. I don't now any more about it than you do. But he said wait here until this messenger arrives."

"Christ. Do you know how long I've been waiting for this moment?"

"No," Foley replied. "And I don't care. You have to wait for this guy. There may be a problem. Whatever it is, I'm sure Kyle has a good reason. He always does."

II

Dennis and Max were parked down the street from the entrance to Foley's in front of a brick wall that surrounded a concrete company that was closed for the night. The streetlight they were parked under wasn't working, and flickered on intermittently. At first they had tried sitting in the cold and the dark with the engine off, but their breath fogged the cold windshield until Max was forced to run the heat in order to keep the target in view. Dennis reached for the radio and picked up the mike.

"What are you doing?' Max asked.

"I'm calling in Husky Two to replace us. They've been in there a while. If we stay here too long we might get made."

"We can wait a little longer," she replied.

"We need to pull back and give someone else a turn. There' s bound to be cameras around this place. We need to back off. Don't push." She nodded as he e keyed the mike. "Husky Two," Dennis said, " this is Husky Five. You've got the overwatch."

"Copy" a voice replied. Max started to put the car in gear when her phone rang. She recognized the ringtone. Shelby. "Max Hardy", she said.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm on my way over to Dr Carter's place to check on Mike," Shelby said.

"Why?" she asked, her voice tightening.

"He didn't tell you? He got bushwhacked on the way there from work. Some guys tried to take him out. He shot one of them, the other's in custody."

"Is he OK?"

"He said he got knocked down in a fight and his back was hurt. I thought he'd called you."

"Has anyone checked on Gwen?" she asked.

"I've called her. She's OK, nothing's happened, and I have agents at her place. I'm sorry you weren't told sooner. I assumed that he..."

"It's alright," she interrupted. " He's just...promise me you'll make him go to the hospital and get checked out."

"Promise. I'll keep you updated."

"Thanks." She disconnected, and sat for a moment, staring in the direction of Foley's. "Bastard", she said, almost under her breath. She might have meant Hegstrom, or whoever had hurt Mike, or Mike for not calling. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"You OK?" Dennis asked, concern in his voice.

"Yes," nodded silently. She sat for a moment, her hand on the gear shift. "They hurt him."

"Just move us back a little," he said. "Can you do that?'

"Yeah." She put the car in gear, and eased out into the road. "Bastards," she said. There was anger in her voice, and no doubt who she meant this time.

III

Mike sat on the back bumper of a CSU van, watching the paramedics lift a Gurney with a body bag strapped to it into the back of an ambulance. The area around the parking deck was roped off with yellow tape and lit by blue lights. A paramedic was saying something about taking him to the hospital. Mark Gray was no longer stabbing him in the back, but he'd left his knife buried deep. It felt like a kidney punch that never stopped. He sat still, trying not to move any more than necessary. Not moving hurt less.

The paramedic's voice changed, and Mike turned his head cautiously to see that he had been replaced by Dan Shelby, and that Jermaine was standing behind him.

"Are you listening?" Shelby asked. "Why are you still here?"

"I uh...I'm OK," Mike said. "I want to talk to that guy. One of 'em is alive. The cops took him..."

"Waller will handle that. Get in the ambulance."

"I'm fine."

"That was not a request," Shelby said acidly. He looked toward the police line and motioned to someone. "Let her through," he shouted.

A moment later, Gwen was at his side, explaining to the paramedics that she was a doctor and that she would ride with him, and didn't he know that Max was worried sick, and just lie back and it would be all right. Then he was being loaded into an ambulance thinking miserably that he was right back where he started and Max was still out there.

"It might just be a pulled muscle."

"Huh?" he asked. He could feel the ambulance beginning to move.

"You could have just pulled a muscle in your back," Gwen said. "And there's going to be bruises."

"No doubt. How did you get here?"

"You called, remember? To tell me why you were late. And I live right down the street. The FBI men at my place gave me a ride. What happened?"

"They were waiting for me. I guess they thought it would be easy." He smiled grimly at the thought. "You didn't have to come. Down here. I just wanted you to know where I was. But thank you. "

"It's gonna be OK," she assured him. "We'll get you checked over. And you should have called Max."

"I didn't want her to worry."

"You'd rather have her pissed off?"

He started to laugh, but it quickly turned into a grimace. "Don't make me laugh. Please. It hurts too damn bad."

IV

"Husky Five, this is Husky Two. Car turning into Foley's. It's a white late model Honda."

"Copy", Max replied. Could you get a license number?"

"Affirmative. Alpha Sierra X-Ray, six five zero three. We're running it now."

"They've been in there for a while," Dennis said. "They've been waiting for this guy. You think they're planning to take someone tonight?"

"That would be my guess. Two guys plus however many are already in there." She looked at the luminous dial of her watch. "It's getting late, though. If they're planning something tonight, then they'll get on the road soon."

"You want to call Shelby, and request a chopper?" Dennis asked. "We could keep eyes on 'em from the air, and keep the cars well back."

"Let's do it." She reached for her phone. "And I'm gonna tell him that we want HRT on standby. Just in case."

V

Phil Hegstrom sat in a hard chair with no arms, bare steel legs and the vinyl coming off the thin foam rubber padding playing a game on his phone while Russell paced a hole in the floor of the waiting area in front of the customer pickup counter. The blinds were closed to the darkened street outside, and Russell occasionally pulled out his phone and checked the time just in case the clock on the wall happened to be wrong.

"Relax," Phil said, without looking up. "He'll call. And there will be a reason."

" She's closing tonight," Russell said irritably. "It's a perfect opportunity. And it's ticking away."

"Pacing will not help."

"I like pacing. It's a good aerobic exercise."

"Pacercise," Phil said. "You can make a video. A one, a two, a...well, then again, nobody would pay to see your flabby ass working out."

Russell stopped pacing long enough to shoot an irritable glance at Phil, and then resumed. "Something's gone wrong."

"Yes," Phil replied, still not looking up from his game. "And Pacercise will help a great deal, I'm sure."

They heard a door open and close, and footsteps coming from the back of the building. Moments later, Foley walked in from the parts storage area with Devin Tucker in tow.

"Who's this?" Phil asked.

"This is Devin," Russell explained. "He just joined the outfit. So Devin, what the hell are you doing here?"

In answer, Devin reached into his coat pocket and produced a phone, which he offered to Russell.

"It's a burner," he explained. "And Kyle has another one that he just bought. He wants you call it right now. The number's already programmed."

VI

"Husky One," Max said. "This is Husky Five. Anything on that license plate?" Husky One was a surveillance van.

"Affirmative," came the reply. "Car is registered to Devin Tucker. Brooklyn address, no priors."

"Copy," she said. "Any signals?"

"We got four active wifi networks. One of 'em is for Foley's."

"Any traffic on that network?" she asked.

"Negative."

"He's been in there for a while," she said to Dennis. "What are they doing?"

"Maybe it's poker night for the guys."

"Husky Five," a woman's voice said over the radio, "this is Husky One. Be advised, chopper is en route, ETA twenty minutes, call sign Robin Eighteen."

"Copy," she answered.

"You think we've been made?" Dennis asked.

"I don't see how. Maybe someone's late to the party."

VII

Russell called the number in the burner phone while, Phil Hegstrom, and Devin Tucker stood anxiously by. On the third ring, he recognized a voice on the other end.

"Hello."

"Kyle? What the fuck's going on?"

"You got your laptop with you?"

"Yeah," Russell replied. "What's up?"

"Go to the settings on this phone. Check for active wifi networks."

"Why?"

"Because I told you to."

"And what am I looking for?"

".Phil's under surveillance by the FBI, they tailed him tonight."

"Holy shit. How the fuck do you know this?"

" I know because I know. I told you, I'm the brains of this operation."

Russell's fingers flew across the face of his phone. He stared at the screen for a moment, a look of shock on his face.

"What is it?" Foley asked.

"It's the Feebs," Russell replied. "They're watching this place." *

"Put me on speaker," Kyle said.

"Done," Russell replied.

"What's going on?" Hegstrom asked.

"Kyle says the FBI is watching this place," Russell explained. He stared intently at the screen of his phone while the others looked on in open mouthed horror.

"OK," Kyle said. "They'll have an active wifi network, probably in a surveillance van. Is Phil there?"

"Yeah," Hegstrom replied"

"They're on to us," Kyle said. Never mind how I know this. They have a van somewhere nearby, and they're monitoring wifi networks in the area. They can hack into a wifi network belonging to a target, and they can set up a rogue access point to capture a target's internet traffic."

"This is not that old crap about the network that says 'FBI Surveillance Van' is it?" Russell asked. "Because that's a load of tinfoil hat bullshit."

"They don't label the network so you can identify it," Kyle replied. "It'll have an innocent sounding name. Something you won't recognize. . Have Foley look at the list. See if there's one he's never seen in the neighborhood before."

Foley looked over Russell's shoulder at the screen. "There's one here called DITU. Don't recognize that one."

"Open or secured?: Kyle asked.

"Open"

""Don't connect to it. You don't see anything secured?"

"Nothing I haven't seen before," Foley said. "Why?"

"If they have an open network, then it's there so we can connect to it, and they can listen in on us. If it's secure, they might be using it to talk to each other. I thought if they had a secure network, we could try to get in through the command line."

"What are you talking about?" Hegstrom asked. "Hacking the FBI?"

"There's a way to order some wifi networks to give you their password," Russell replied. "I kinda doubt it works on the FBI."

"Well it would have been worth a shot," Kyle said.

"Are you insane?" Phil said. "We're fucked. We gotta call it off."

"Maybe not," Kyle answered. "We have to cancel on the original target. But there might just be a way to salvage something out of this, and teach the Feebs about the dangers of fucking with us. And while we're at it, make the biggest splash since Joe Carroll rose from the grave."

VIII

"Husky Five, this is Two. The gate's opening. Somebody's coming out."

"Copy," Max replied. "Who is it?"

"It's that Honda."

"Husky three, get after him," she said. "Two remain on overwatch." She turned to Dennis. "Call Command. Somebody get on the street vidcams."

"Last in, first out," Dennis said, as he disconnected from his call to the Command Center. "Whatever they're up to, it's starting."

""Five, this is Two, second vehicle coming out. It's a gold Camry. It's heading the opposite direction from the Honda."

"License plate," Max replied.

"Can't make it out from here." He's heading for Four's position."

"Four, get that license number," she said.

"Copy."

Minutes dragged like hours before the radio spoke again. "This is Husky Four. Car belongs to a guy named Russell Goers. Address is Union City New Jersey. No priors. He's moving in the opposite direction from the last car."

"I know what they're doing," said Max.

'What?"

"They're splitting up and going in all directions to overload the surveillance."

"No way. They can't be on to us."

"They're on to us," she replied grimly. "Don't ask me how. They've changed the plan. We stick with Hegstrom. We split people off and try to track as many of them as we can, and we send for more people, because we have to stake out all of Hegstrom's contacts."

"We're spread thin if we do that," Dennis objected. "Maybe it's exactly what they want us to do. If it's just the two of us, we're more likely to get made. I think we should all stick with Hegstrom."

"We're made already. Somehow they know. Whatever they were planning for tonight, the show's off. But we're gonna stick with Hegstrom, and we're not taking eyes off these people while they pull off another murder. We spilt the team. And you and I stick with Hegstrom."

IX

Gwen stood in front of a vending machine in a lounge that had exerted a magnetic pull on her as she made her way back from the rest room. Mike was safe, and she could stop for a minute and consider carefully whether she really should have those peanut butter cheese crackers that called out to her from behind the glass. She nearly always avoided junk food, but decided that the stresses of the last few days permitted an exception. In the scheme of things, pangs of hunger outweighed pangs of guilt. She slipped a bill into the machine, and collected the plastic wrapped indulgence that dropped into the slot below.

She entered Mike's room to find him slipping on his jacket. He froze for a moment, and then zipped it up. "You weren't gone very long," he said.

"I think maybe I was gone too long" she replied. "Clearly you need to be under observation."

"I need to be going."

"Mr Shelby ordered you to come here."

"And I did."

"I'm sure he meant for you to be examined while you're here. And I'm sure that he'll be unhappy if you leave before then."

" Which is why you're not going to tell him."

"This is nuts."

"You said it was just a pulled muscle."

"I said it might be. You could have re-injured something. You could have injured something else for the first time. Your spine for instance."

She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Calling someone who can pull rank. Since I don't have Mr Shelby's number, Max."

"Please don't do that. Look, I know you're worried about me, but you should be more worried about Max. She's out there, and these people have her in their crosshairs. They could be setting her up for some kind of ambush. I have to talk to the guy who tried to kill me. Is that protective detail Shelby put on you still around? "

"Yes."

"Ok," he said. "Go to the cafeteria for a while. Get some food, while I slip out. They'll go with you. They won't see me leave. As far as Shelby's concerned, you didn't know. Please. I love her. And right now she's a target. Whoever this is, they've been obsessed with her for a long time."

She hesitated, glancing uncertainly towards the door.

"We promised Ryan," he said. "That we'd look out for each other. I have to be there."

"Has it always been like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like somehow the rules don't apply to the...two of you." She'd started to say three.

"Yeah. Pretty much,"

"OK then," she said at last. "After all this time, you and Max must be rubbing off on me."

"Thank you. Just go to the cafeteria and wait for a while."

As she turned to leave, he said "And welcome to the family."

X

"Looks like he's headed back to campus," Dennis said.

"Looks like. Call that chopper. Tell them to take up station and watch this guy from a distance. We'll drop back. No sense in getting made. He can stay on station two, maybe two and half hours. They can keep tabs on him while he's on the highway. We'll close up the distance and keep him in sight as he approaches the campus."

"Right." Dennis reached for the radio mike. "How did they know? It's like they called it off when that guy showed up."

"Maybe that last guy in was carrying a message," she said. he was carrying a message. "From whoever's in charge."

"How could whoever's in charge know we were there?" Dennis asked. "That's impossible."

"You got me.," she said. "Somehow they got onto us. But we were careful."

"Well right now we don't have a whole lot of backup," Dennis said. "And if Mike were here, I think he'd tell you that we still need to be careful."

XI

Jermaine Waller eyed the slender man with lank blond hair who sat cuffed to the steel bar across the interview room table. His driver's license identified him as Walter Crenshaw of Passaic New Jersey. A check showed no criminal record, but the silenced Beretta 71 pistol that he'd tried to shoot Mike Weston with showed definite criminal intent.

So far he'd said nothing. He'd placed a phone call to the law firm of Dickson Waterhouse, claiming that they would represent him and be sending someone. Jermaine was expecting them shortly, and the call had surprised him. Usually a young guy like this would call his parents first. Jermaine had checked, and they were both living in Passaic, though divorced. A kid like this normally wouldn't know the name of a high priced law firm, and probably couldn't afford them if he did. Jermaine wondered what kind of money and advanced planning might be involved here.

With high priced legal help on the way, he considered his options. Crenshaw had been here for a while, and likely hadn't had anything to eat or drink for several hours. He decided to make an offer of a drink. Maybe he could start some small talk and get the guy to open up before the lawyers got here. It probably wouldn't work, but he had nothing to lose by trying. "Thirsty?" he asked.

"I'm Ok."

"Sure? It's a long time till morning, and they won't feed you until then. I could get you some water."

"So you're the good cop."

"If you want to think of it like that," Jermaine said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"So when does the bad cop show up?"

'You've been watching too much TV. There is no bad cop. I don't need one."

"No? Why not?"

"Well, because I'm actually a pretty good cop, in several senses of that term, and the way I see it, given the depth of shit you're in, you'll probably want to do yourself some good and help me out. So once your lawyer gets here, and he is on his way, I'm sure we can all be reasonable."

"So there's no bad cop?"

"Nope. Disappointed?"

"No. I just...so even after I refuse to help you..."

"You're not gonna do that. You're too smart. But even if you did, there's no..."

The sound of the door opening behind him caused Jermaine to turn, expecting to see Crenshaw's lawyer. Jermaine stopped in mid sentence at the sight of Mike Weston.

"...bad cop", he finished.

"Remember me?" Mike asked, glaring balefully at Crenshaw.

Crenshaw's eyes became the size of silver dollars. "Fuck me," he said.

Mike reached under his jacket and produced something tucked inside his waistband. Something black and slender, about eight inches long that, with a metallic snap grew into an extendable baton.

"What are doing with that?" Jermaine asked.

"Well, normally, when I beat the living hell out of a suspect, I just use my fists, but right now my back is killing me, so..."

"You said you were done with this kind of stuff," Jermaine said.

"I am," Mike replied. "Just as soon as I'm done with him."

"I'm not having anything to do with this."

"So go out for a smoke break."

"I quit."

"My lawyer's on the way," Crenshaw objected, alarm in his voice.

"This won't take long."

"Are you insane?" Jermaine asked. "The cops will hear."

"They're not even listening. You'd be surprised what the local cops will overlook when you flash an FBI badge in their face. You should try it sometime."

"He's telling the truth," Jermaine said. "He has called his lawyer."

"Yeah, I know. One of the detectives mentioned that. Boy just happens to know the name of a high priced lawyer. Because he got it from whoever is in charge of his group." He turned to face Crenshaw. "Didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Phil Hegstrom put spyware in Melissa Canning's computer," Mike said. "I traced the hack. Which means there's at least three of you. Except there's more, and someone else is in charge. Someone obsessed with the woman I love. Who right now is out there tracking down Hegstrom. Hegstrom had at least one accomplice when he killed Melissa Canning. And whoever he was working with is zeroed in on Max. You're going to tell me who that is, and if you don't, then there is nothing I will not do to you."

"Who's Melissa Canning?" Crenshaw asked.

Mike flicked the baton, catching Crenshaw's forearm just below his elbow. Crenshaw gave an agonized shout.

Jermaine grabbed Mike's arm. "I'm not being part of this."

"You never saw it. You were in the Men's room."

Jermaine shook his head wordlessly. "It's not just Max," Mike said. "If these guys are setting up some kind of a trap, there's no telling how many people we might lose." He shook his arm from Jermaine's grip and turned to face Crenshaw. "And as for you, kid, if you people know who Max is, then you know who I am. The things I've done. The things that have been done to me. No matter what happens to me, No matter what it takes, I am not losing anyone else to the likes of you. You know who's targeting Max. I want a name. Now."

XII

"Long way to go for nothing," Max said, as they turned towards the brick house in Esher's Ferry where Hegstrom rented an apartment.

"They must have been planning something," Dennis replied. "But they called it off. Careful here. We're tailing him solo now. He might have seen us."

"He doesn't act like it."

"Whoa, what are you doing?"

"Staying close enough to see him."

"Yeah, but this is a dead end road he lives on," Dennis objected. " The river is right down there. He can't get out."

"I want to see him walk into that apartment, and then I'm going to keep the place in sight until another unit relieves us. He is not getting out of sight and then slipping away somewhere on foot where one of his friends can pick him up."

She pulled over to the side of the narrow road, leaving the motor on but killing the headlights.

"This isn't a great place to park," Dennis pointed out. "You've practically got that guy's driveway blocked."

"There are no great places to park, but I'm not moving until we get another unit."

Ahead, they could see Hegstrom climbing the steps to the front door of the brick house he lived in. A moment later, he disappeared inside.

"That chopper's landed by now," he pointed out. "There won't be another unit here for a while. It's just us."

"We can hang out for a while."

"We're blocking traffic," Dennis pointed out.

"What traffic?" She asked.

In answer, a blue light came on behind them. Max looked in her rear view mirror and saw a cop getting out of the patrol car and walking towards them. "Don't tell me he can't see government plates," she said irritably.

"He sees 'em," Dennis replied. "But a warrant for surveillance isn't a warrant to block the street and annoy the good citizens."

Max reached into her pocket, fished out her badge, and rolled the window down. A moment later Moffet appeared.

"We're on a stakeout," she said.

"Good on ya," Moffett replied. "We got a call from a female student who lives in this area about someone following her around. I saw your car and thought you might be interested. Have you seen anyone?"

"I saw a guy enter that house," Max said, pointing, "but we tailed him. When was this?"

"A few minutes ago. Girl lives in an apartment on the next street over. I thought I saw something moving between those two houses, and wondered if he might have come this way." he pointed at two house on the right hand side of the road located just behind the FBI car. "You want to back me up? It might be one of your guys."

"Sure," Max replied. "But if there's anyone around, you spooked them when you hit the lights."

She stepped out of the car and began scanning the area. She walked across the snow towards the houses. Both were two story. The larger on the left was a boxy looking affair, an apartment building, likely, with a smaller single family home on the right. There wasn't much space between them, yards here were small. A hedge ran to the road along the property line and bushes planted near the right hand house obscured the area between them, which was hidden in deep shadow. Looking at it closely, Max realized that someone could have ducked in there to hide.

She opened her coat so she could get at her Glock, envying Moffet's open carry hip holster as she did so. At least he could stay warm. to She pulled out her flashlight. "Let's go," she said. Snow crunched beneath her boots as she walked. She wore her .38 on the inside of her left leg, her jeans pulled down over it. She looked to her right to find that Dennis was beside her, and that Moffet had dropped back and was now bringing up the rear. Well, it isn't every campus cop who can get FBI backup for a suspicious person report. He might as well take advantage of it.

The cold had seeped under her open coat as she rounded a bush and shone her flashlight ahead. The bright, blue white LED beam reflected off the snow clinging to the bushes, and she squinted against the glare.

The space between the bushes narrowed, and she stepped forward, drawing her Glock and crossing her wrists, flashlight in her left hand, Glock in her right. As she stepped forward, she heard a noise behind her a thud, followed by a grunt, and the sound of a body hitting the ground. She turned, startled, to see Dennis lying on the ground, and Moffet standing behind him holding a sap.

Instantly she aimed her Glock at Moffet, hoping the beam of her LED light would blind him. "Drop it," she snarled. He made no move to comply. "I said drop it," she repeated.

She felt something hard and blunt shoved between her shoulder blades. The business end of a handgun. "You drop it," a voice said. A man's voice. "Get her gun," the man said, and Moffet began to step forward, squinting against the glare.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Max," the man said. "It's time we got acquainted. Our relationship will be short, but intense."

Musical Interlude - Tomorrow Wendy by Concrete Blonde

* Derisive nickname for the FBI, used mainly by the American political Right.

 _About That FBI Surveillance Van Network_

From time to time people detect wifi networks named FBI Surveillance Van. I once picked one up while out for a drink. There is considerable debate online as to whether or not this is people naming their routers FBI Surveillance as a prank.

I've seen a procedure demonstrated that supposedly allows a hacker to obtain the password for a wifi network through the command line of Windows, but I'm not in the business of teaching you guys how to hack.

17


	7. I'm Not Here To Bring You Fruitcake

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Chapter 7 - I'm Not Here To Bring You Fruitcake

"So how many guys are in Ellion?" Mike asked.

"I don't know," Crenshaw replied. "I've only been in for a three weeks, and the only guys I've met are Kyle and Sarnoff. He's the one who introduced me to Kyle. And he's the only one who really knows how many there are."

"So why that message to Max after Melissa Canning was killed?"

"I honestly don't know about any message," Crenshaw said. "Kyle doesn't tell anyone everything. And I never heard of Melissa Canning until tonight, I swear to God."

"Why me?" Mike asked.

"Sarnoff said that Kyle was really interested in Max Hardy. And you. And he had been since going back to Joe Carroll. If he picked out Max for himself, then maybe that's why he wanted you taken out. Sarnoff told me once that Kyle had said that if Ryan Hardy was still alive, they'd assign him to the case. It was like he wanted to take on the varsity."

"What's his plan for Max? How does he plan to take her?"

"You got me, Lone Ranger. If there's a plan, I'll be the last to know. But there probably is one."

"Did Kyle give you the name of a law firm to call if you were picked up?"Mike asked.

"Yeah."

"You have the right to an attorney," Mike said, "but I'd advise you to pick him out yourself. These people are probably there to represent Kyle, not you."

"I thought I had the right to remain silent," Crenshaw said.

"You do," Mike said. "But when it's someone I love, your rights are way down the list."

II

Max let her Glock and her flashlight drop to the ground. She slowly put her hands at about shoulder height. " So you're my legacy," she said.

"Yeah," the man said. "Sort of like Ryan's unfinished business."

"You knew Ryan?"

"No. But I'll enjoy getting to know you. Cuff her."

Moffet was stepping over Dennis, who was lying still on the ground. He was putting the sap away. He'd need both hands for the cuffs. Moffett might be partly blinded by the glare of her LED light, and whoever was behind her probably wasn't looking down. She cautiously widened her stance.

Her options were bad. She could scream, and be shot right here. Well, at least someone would find her body. If she did nothing, she'd find herself in a place where screaming wouldn't matter. The gun barrel was still pressing between her shoulders. Which meant he was close enough...

She turned her head to the left, as if looking back at him. In her peripheral vision, she could see a silhouette against a streetlight, nothing more. She spun to the left on her heel, twisting her body to get it out of the way of the gun. She brought her left arm down to trap his gun hand against her body and swung with her right, hoping to catch his head with her elbow. She hit his face, not hard enough to do damage, but enough startle him, and now he was off balance, and she had her right hand on his gun arm. He was so busy trying to pull the gun away from her that he didn't see her knee coming for his balls.

He grunted in pain when her knee made contact. Her right hand twisted the gun, using it to lever his wrist backwards, trapping his trigger finger against the trigger guard. The gun, a boxy semiauto, fired a moment before he released it. Her hand on the gun meant it was now jammed, but it still made for a good impact weapon. She brought it back and viciously slammed it into the man's face.

She was grabbed from behind. Moffet was still back there. Her legacy recovered his balance and made a wild swung for her face. A gloved hand hit her jaw hard enough to make her see stars. She was outnumbered, outweighed, and trapped, and the gun in her hand was useless. She would be beaten senseless long before she could clear it. She went limp, forcing Moffet to suddenly take all of her weight and bringing her left leg up. The sudden shift caught him off guard, and she slipped from his grasp, falling hard to the ground. She rolled on impact. Legacy kicked her, aiming for her gut but hitting her arm instead as she pulled the leg of her jeans up with her left hand to clear the .38. Her right hand jerked the snubnose from its ankle holster.

Legacy was disarmed for the moment, but Moffet still had a gun, a sap, and probably mace or a taser as well. She went for him first. She squeezed hard on the trigger, feeling the long double action takeup. The orange muzzle flash momentarily blinded her and obscured Moffet's hulking form. For her second shot, she managed to get a two handed grip on the weapon. There was no getting a sight picture in the shadows, but at this range there wasn't much chance of a miss either. The sound of her second shot was followed by a scream of agony, and Moffett dropped into the snow practically on top of her, clutching his right leg.

She rolled again, trying to bring the gun to bear on Legacy. She saw the silhouette of a fleeing man, rounding the corner of the house. She held her fire. If she missed, her bullet might go into one of the houses on the next street.

She crawled through the snow to where Moffet was still screaming and holding onto his blood soaked trousers just below the knee. It looked like her bullet had shattered his tibia. She jammed the snubnose into her pocket and removed the gun from Moffet's holster before he could get any ideas about continuing the fight.

In her mouth she tasted blood. Were her teeth broken? Cautiously, she checked with her tongue. No, but she had bitten her own cheek from the impact. She crawled to where Dennis lay on the ground. "Dennis! Dennis!" No response. Had he been hit by a bullet? She dropped Moffet's gun and pulled out her cell phone, turning on its flashlight to look for blood. She didn't see any, but when she felt under his hair he had a knot on the back of his head. When she ran her fingers over it, he moaned. She was in the process of dialing the Command Center for backup when the face of her phone lit up and a familiar ringtone sounded.

"Mike?" she asked, as she connected "Are you OK?"

"Yeah. And I've got a name for you. The name of the guy who's behind all of this."

III

Before he joined the FBI Dan Shelby had been in the Navy, and a picture of a submarine riding on the surface hung on the wall of his office. Mike wasn't sure if Shelby had served on that submarine, of if he just liked having pictures of them on the wall, but standing in front of Shelby's desk with Jermaine Waller, he felt pretty sure that Shelby knew a lot about torpedoes, and wondered if he was about to put one into Mike's career.

"I believe," Shelby said, "that it was Edna St. Vincent Millay who said that life isn't one damn thing after another, it's one damn thing over and over. You're not even back on full duty, Weston, and here you go again."

"I got the name of the guy who runs the group. Who tried to take Max tonight, and if I hadn't..."

"Then Waller might have gotten the name without violating his civil rights."

"I doubt it," Mike replied. "I think Kyle Richmond sent him to someone who would have told him to lawyer up."

"Even so, we can't get a warrant with this."

"But Melissa Canning was found less than a mile from his father's house in Connecticut," Mike objected.

"Max is going to talk to his father. Kyle Richmond doesn't answer at his apartment near the campus, so we'll try his Dad's place."

"I only hit him once."

"For which we are all profoundly grateful. Especially given that you used a deadly weapon. His attorney is threatening a lawsuit."

"He won't go through with it," Mike said, with more confidence than he felt. "This Moffet character will give us something we can use."

"Let's hope so, and just to be on the safe side, make sure you don't go anywhere near him. Waller, do you have anything you want to add to this?"

"Sir," Jermaine began, "I'm sorry for what happened, I should have..." he let the thought trail off.

"Yes," Shelby said acidly. "You damn well should have."

"How's Dennis?" Mike asked.

"He was transported," Shelby replied. "I think he'll be OK. Max is gonna have a shiner. Moffet may be walking with a limp for the rest of his life, but he'll live."

"I can't believe they tried to grab her in a residential neighborhood," Mike said.

"Surprised me too," Shelby replied. "Apparently the university is expanding. Seems there's a lot of money in higher education, and they set up the snatch between two houses that had just been sold to the university and were vacant. One of those houses had an indoor garage. They could have dragged her inside, put her in a getaway vehicle, maybe even Moffet's patrol car, and just driven off. This was really well planned."

"How did they know about the surveillance?" Mike asked.

"My guess would be that when you called to get Phil Hegstrom's class schedule, Moffet got wind of it and tipped off Kyle Richmond. Someone in Administration might have told him, maybe water cooler gossip or there's more of these people than we know about. Max kicked in Hegstrom's door about an hour ago. We've got him on hacking that girl's computer, and they're going to see if they can find anything specifically linking him to the murder.

"I'm going to try to contain the damage on this. That was good work you did on that laptop, and taking down those those two guys was damned impressive. That having been said, if any of these people walk because you played fast and loose with the rules, it's your ass. Now go home. Get some rest. You look like shit."

"Sorry," Mike said to Jermaine as they walked down the hall towards the parking garage.

"I'd tell you that you should be," Jermaine replied, "but I let you get away with it. I should have known. Maybe those three ghosts will show up some time and let you see what you're in for if you don't change for real. Merry fucking Christmas."

He stalked off, leaving Mike standing there, wondering if he should just go back to his own apartment. Gwen had a protective detail on her, and a bed would feel better than her couch. He was leaning towards his own bed when his phone rang. Gwen.

"Hi Gwen."

"Mike, I just wanted you to know, I'm heading back to the hospital. I think it's time."

IV

Dawn was approaching when Kyle reached his father's house. It had been a harrowing drive. There didn't seem to be much of any other place to go. He had the bracelet for the House, but that was a long drive, and he's need gas. Buying the gas he would need with a card would be broadcasting his position. He needed money to make his escape, or at least disappear for a while. The two likeliest sources were his father's safe, and if the combination to that had been changed, his father.

Did the FBI even have his name? He couldn't raise Sarnoff or Crenshaw. They might have just turned chickenshit and decided to lay low after getting made, but it was always possible that they'd managed to get themselves arrested somehow. Then there was Hegstrom. The FBI had somehow connected him to the murder of Melissa Canning, and put him under surveillance. The plan to take that Goth chick had been aborted, but the FBI might have identified everyone at Foley's, and arranging Hegstrom's demise would take time that he probably didn't have. Kyle had told himself that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, so he'd tried to take Max Hardy. The original plan had been to toy with her a lot longer, sending messages and waiting for the opportune moment, but when a perfect chance came, that lardass Moffett couldn't even get the cuffs on her before she'd whipped out the kung fu, or whatever that martial arts shit was.*

He'd taken bitches before, but he'd never seen a bitch who could hit that hard that fast.

So everything had gone to shit practically overnight. Unless he was a lot luckier than he'd been in the last 24 hours, someone was going to rat him out. So he needed money to make a getaway. With money he could lay low for a while, contact this serial killer organization, and get them to arrange an escape rout.

His father's car was in the garage, but there was no else awake as he slipped inside. His old man was a sound sleeper, and Kyle's arrival home apparently didn't awaken him. He made his way quietly to the study and found, to his relief, that the combination hadn't been changed. He filled his coat pockets with stacks of hundred dollar bills. He stood for a moment, looking at the open wall safe, wondering if he ought to ransack it for anything incriminating that he could use to try to blackmail his father or any of his criminal associates into helping him.

He was turning the issue over in his mind when his phone rang, nearly scaring him out his mind. He was sure he'd turned the damn thing off to keep someone from tracking him. He frantically grabbed for it, hoping the noise wouldn't awaken his father. The number, he saw, was private.

"Hello?"

"Kyle," a man's voice said, "you need to get out of that fucking house right now. The FBI is on the way"

"Who is this?"

"I'm the voice of Doom, Kyle. The hand that writes on the wall. Leave now. Or you can stick around and find out what happens to pretty white college boys in the joint."

"How do I know you aren't the FBI?"

"Because the FBI would just come through the door and put the cuffs on you, dipshit. Which they will be doing real soon."

"Where do I go?"

"Anyplace you like, kiddo. It's a free country."

"Will you contact me again?" Kyle asked.

But the caller, whoever he was, had disconnected.

Who was it? Probably not the FBI and certainly not anyone in Ellion. A member of the Organization? But how could they know where he was? Whoever his anonymous benefactor was, he decided that he needed to take the warning seriously. He closed up the safe and began making his way to the garage.

V

Max wore her shades, even though the sun wasn't fully up yet. The eastern sky was growing brighter, and she knew the glare from the snow while driving would be murder on her bleary eyes. She might have gotten three hours sleep last night, maybe. After watching a groggy Dennis bundled off in the ambulance, she'd gone to Phil Hegstrom's apartment without waiting for backup. One of the other students had let her in. She'd kicked in the door of his room and calmly informed him that he could come quietly or be shot resisting. Going without backup wasn't procedure, and she might be in hot water with Shelby later, but she couldn't surround the place solo, and she didn't want him slipping away.

She was half surprised to find him still there. Surely the sound of the police and ambulance sirens outside had tipped him off, but apparently he'd decided to play innocent and try to bluff his way through rather than make a run for it.

After that, she'd handed him over to the police and gone to the hospital to find Dennis sitting up and looking a lot better. Next she'd gone to the hotel long enough to change out of her cold wet clothes and driven to the White Plains office where she'd been updated on the situation. Hegstrom had lawyered up, Moffet was just out of surgery and couldn't be questioned, Mike was hurt and in deep kimche for beating up a suspect, Gwen was in labor, Kyle Richmond was still at large, and her face hurt like a bitch where she'd been punched. At some point, someone had shown her to a couch where she'd more or less passed out.

She'd been awakened what felt like moments later by someone telling her that they had rounded up the extra manpower she'd requested and that Dennis was back.

Her first order of business was to reach for her phone. There was a text message from Mike. "7 pounds, 12 ounces. His name is Ryan. They're both OK. Call me."

She looked at the time and decided against calling right away. At least one of them should get some sleep.

She found Dennis in a conference room down the hall, with two paper bags and two paper cups of coffee in front of him. He offered her one of the cups. "Here," he said. "Cream, sugar, and there's even some actual coffee in it. And there's a bagel."

"Thanks," she said. "I knew they were wrong."

"Who?"

"The doctors. They said they'd probably keep you overnight. I'm used to having hard headed men in my life."

Now they were driving along a winding road through the wooded Connecticut countryside past expensive homes, and the eastern sky was growing brighter. She'd put on the shades because her head was pounding as it was. Dennis was at the wheel.

"So how much shit is Mike in?" Dennis asked.

"I don't know. It might depend on whether we can find Kyle Richmond."

"You do realize that we don't have a warrant."

"I know. Look, we can't kick the door in, all we can do is ask. But we've got an all points out on Kyle Richmond, and his car, and we're leaving people to watch the neighborhood. He may show up."

"Did you call Mike?"

"Not yet. I wanted so much to be there when Ryan's son was born. Instead I'm here, tracking down these animals. I remember that night. When Ryan went off the bridge. Before it happened he told me that there would be no end to the violence and the insanity. He thought sometimes that he was cursed. Maybe it's descended on me."

"I don't believe in curses. You're in the driver's seat of your own life. You're gonna make it through this, and you're going to be with your family for Christmas. Just maintain focus. Don't let these people live in your head rent free."

"I won't. Promise."

"So we've got guys canvassing the area," Dennis said. "Maybe someone saw Kyle or his car. We've got more guys watching the roads around his old man's house. We've got it on the morning news that he's a person of interest. He'll be feeling the heat. What's his next move?"

"We have no idea how many people are in his group," she replied. "There were four at Foley's, plus Kyle, plus Moffet. If there's more, then Kyle could hole up with one of them. But that's not what he's going to do."

"How do you know?"

"Phil Hegstrom helped set me up, even if we can't prove it yet. Kyle knew we were on to his merry men, and he took just one hell of a chance to try to nail me. He had to know that however it went down, we'd start pulling in some of his people, and that someone might rat on him. So he needs an out. And I think he's got one. He would never have tried to snatch me otherwise. We may not have much time before he disappears for good."

"What kind of an out? Where could he go? He'd need money. ID. Where would he get that? His father? Look, I know you're paranoid after last night, but I think what he did was just opportunistic. Impulsive. A chance to grab you came up, and he took it, and now he's winging it."

"No," she replied. "This guy doesn't wing it. He's an organizer. A planner. He's got something in mind."

VI.

Hunt Club Road ended in a circle drive, but a driveway that connected to it led back into the woods. It passed a frozen lake and ended in a fiefdom centered around a long two story manor affair with brick and stucco siding and a gable and hip roof line. The middle aged Hispanic woman who answered the door blanched at the sight of FBI badges and let them in, explaining that she'd get Mr. Richmond.

He appeared in the foyer a few minutes later in sweats and sneaks, and a moment before walked in Max could hear him dressing down the woman for letting them in without showing a arrant. "I'm sorry," he said, as he came through the door, in a tome that sounded more angry than sorry. "You can't be in here."

"I'm Max Hardy," she said, showing her badge again.

"I know who you are. I've seen you on the news. And you still can't be in here."

"Sir," she said, "we need to find your son. Do you know where he is?"

"Kyle? Why are you looking for him?"

"We need to talk to him," Dennis replied. "It's important."

"I have no idea where he is," Richmond said . "His car's not here. He does have an apartment..."

"Yes sir, we know about that," she interrupted. "He's not there either. When was he here last?"

"He came in last night for dinner, but didn't stay. He left about 6:30. You can ask Juanita, she was here.'

"We will," Max replied. "Why didn't he stay?"

Harvey hesitated a moment before answering, as if weighing his words carefully. "He got a phone call. I don't know who from, and he wouldn't say. And he left after that, and didn't say where he was going."

"May we look around?" she asked.

"Sorry, but no warrant, no search. Why are you looking for my son?"

"Because," Dennis explained, "someone told us he might have been involved in a murder. He's considered a person of interest."

"I refuse to believe it. And if you don't have grounds for a search warrant, then maybe whoever told you this isn't all that credible and you shouldn't believe it either."

"Sir," Dennis answered, "a young woman has been murdered."

"I'm sure Kyle had nothing to do with it. You have no warrant and I'll not have you in my house on a fishing expedition. This interview is over. And don't come back without a warrant."

VII

Kyle made a mental list of what he'd need for the trip to Virginia. Gas, for one thing. For another, some food to take on the way so he wouldn't have to stop. Bottled water, too. He thought about trying to shelter with another member, but decided against it. There was too much heat on him now, he had no way of knowing who might rat on him, and besides, the Voice Of Doom, whoever that was, had shaken him badly. Someone had known he was in his Dad's house, and warned him. Someone in the Organization, perhaps? Did they know, and were they trying to bring him in? Would the Voice call again, and maybe direct him to a rendezvous where friends would be waiting?

It wasn't something he could count on. So for now he'd take a detour off his ususal rout. Instead of taking highway 15 west towards the university where he worked, he'd head north. Gas stations were sparse in this area, and only one was close.** There was a station to the north, in the small community of Whiteridge, just before you reached the New York State line. And a store near that. If they were open at this hour, he could get what he needed.

Whiteridge wasn't much to look at , just a few small shops and a fire station clustered around a crossroads in the mostly wooded countryside. There was place called L&M Automotive, and yes, they were open early. He filled his tank, paying the owner with a hundred dollar bill. The owner, a tall, pale man shaved head, looked at the bill for a moment. "You got anything smaller?" he asked.

"Business bad?", Kyle snapped, instantly regretting his words. The last thing he wanted now was to be memorable, but he had to use the cash from the safe, and he was down to his last nerve.

The owner flicked a marker pen across the bill to check its authenticity, and then gave Kyle his change. Kyle walked out hurriedly, feeling as he did so that everyone was looking at him. Not that there were many people out and about yet. He wished he'd packed a bag in advance in case he ever had to make run for it. Just get to the store, stock up on a few things, and get on the road. If anyone around here ever remembered him it wouldn't matter, because pretty soon he'd be long gone.

Hobson's Country Store, less than a hundred yards down the road, was also open for business. He grabbed a small basket from a stack by the door and began filling it with bottled water, bread, cookies, and some canned stuff. The selection was limited, but it would have to do. He paid with the change he'd gotten at the gas station, and stopped at the door before leaving, cautiously looking outside to see who might be there. A another car had pulled in, and a middle aged man was getting out. A van was pulling into the small parking lot. Stimpson Plumbing. Two guys sitting in the front. The van pulled into a parking space beside the middle aged man's car. The driver got out and began walking towards the door, the passenger stayed in the van talking on a phone. Just guys going to work.

Time to get on the road then. No time for paranoia. No one was watching, no one was coming. Get on the road, and maybe the Voice would call again.

VIII

"He was nervous," Dennis said as they drove away. "Defensive."

"It's his son we're talking about. Naturally he's protective. But did you see how he reacted when we asked why Kyle left?"

"Yeah. It was like he was deciding how much to tell us. You think he told us the truth?"

"I think he told us the truth," Max replied, " just not all of it. That call was from whoever tipped him off about the surveillance. Probably Moffet."

"You want to check Moffet's phone records? If we can prove he was talking to Kyle..."

"We'll check, but these guys are too smart for that. Moffet used a burner, and it's long gone. I think the old man knows that little Kyle was up to no good. But he wasn't going to lie about the phone call. Juanita might have overheard, even if she wasn't in the room."

"We can say that Kyle Richmond is a person of interest," Dennis said, "and we can put out an all points. But if he really did kill the girl in that house, and keep in mind that the body was found less than a mile away, then maybe we could have found proof with that warrant we can't get."

"Maybe. But Kyle had a law firm lined up for these guys. I'm not sure Crenshaw would have talked if Mike hadn't been ready to leave bruises."

"You're actually defending what he did?"

"No," she said dejectedly. "I'm not. Mike's done a lot of things I won't defend. And some things I've had to cover for. But even if I can't defend his actions I'll always defend him. It was that way with Ryan, too."

"I wasn't judging you," he said uneasily.

"I know. I told Mike. About the laptop. He knows what you did. And he appreciates it." She lapsed into silence for a moment before continuing. "It was a choice I had to make. They both made a lot of mistakes. And so did I. But we would have died for each other."

"I know."

"I don't really think I'm cursed," she said. "But I do need to understand what happened to Ryan. What he really meant that night. Something was wrong. Something was up with him. That guy said he was Ryan's unfinished business. I still don't know what that means. I do think there's more of these people out there. More of Strauss' people out there, and that's assuming Kyle Richmond isn't one of them. And with Ryan gone, I'm going to need people I can trust, maybe more than ever. I'm glad you're on the team."

"Am I on the team?"

"You are," she said. " You have been. Ever since you came to see me that day."

"So does our team have a secret handshake?"

"Yeah, we do. 'll teach you later," she grinned.

Her phone rang, and she looked the screen. Shelby. "Max Hardy," she said, as she connected.

"Someone phoned in an anonymous tip. They said they saw Kyle Richmond's car in Whiteridge. That's a few miles north of where his Dad lives."

"Stop!" she practically shouted at Dennis. "Pull over!

"Where is this place?" she asked into her phone.

"Up River Road, north a couple of miles. They saw a car, and a guy buying gas. The description fits."

" Call those guys we have watching the house," she said. "Call the locals. I want roadblocks."

"Already in the works. I've got a chopper on the way, plus New York and Connecticut Highway Patrol. We'll coordinate with the locals from here."

"Thanks," she said, disconnecting. She turned to Dennis. "River Road, a couple of miles from here, maybe less. Go."

Dennis made a U turn from the shoulder where he'd pulled over and hit the gas. "Are they sure about this?"

"No, but he might have just left his Dad's place. And gone the opposite direction."

"You mean the old man lied?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Right now I want to box this guy in. We'll have a talk with his Dad later. Can't you go any faster?"

"Yes, but we need to get there in one piece. I'm going as fast as I can."

"No you're not."

"Down, girl. We wreck this thing and..."

The road ahead curved to the right, and as Dennis eased into it a bit of ice left by the scrapers or missed by the salt caused him to lose traction. The car started to drift to the left. A van in the oncoming lane honked it's horn in disapproval. Dennis recovered and got them back onto the right side of the road just as the van, marked Stimpson Plumbing, roared past.

"Told ya," Dennis said. "I'll get us there. Just be cool."

IX

Harvey Richmond sat in the kitchen, staring glumly at the waffles in front of him, his coffee getting cold in the cup, his juice getting warm in a glass. Juanita, seeing him ignoring the breakfast she had made, had asked if there was anything wrong with it. He had assured her that there was not, and had continued to sit there worrying and not eating while Juanita had busied herself elsewhere.

He heard the doorbell. Was the FBI back? He decided to go see for himself, in case she let them back in without a warrant. He got up from the table and headed for the front door. As he stepped out of the kitchen, he heard a noise from the direction of the foyer. Something had hit the floor. He stepped around he corner to enter the foyer.

Juanita was lying on the floor, face up, eyes open, blood spreading over the front of her dress. Two men stood over her, dressed in coveralls, like workmen. One of them held a boxy looking semiauto with a silencer. Two more men were entering through the front door.

The man with the pistol casually pointed it at Harvey's midsection. "Season's Greetings, Harv," he said. "And freeze." Harvey froze.

Two of the other men seized Harvey and frisked him roughly, then hustled him into the family room and shoved him down into a seated position on the couch. "Toss the place," the man with the pistol said, and then sat down in a nearby chair while one of his companions began a search of the family room, and the others headed upstairs.

The man holding the pistol was slightly tanned and slender, with dark eyes, dark messy hair, and high cheekbones. "You know who I am, right?" the man asked.

"You're Derek," Harvey replied.

"Right. And you know why I'm here."

"Eliza sent you."

"I want you think of me," Derek said, "as one of the Boss Lady's little elves. She knows who's been naughty and nice. Now, if you'd been nice, I'd be here with fruitcake. Harv, I'm not here to bring you fruitcake."

"Tell me what the problem is," Harvey offered nervously. "I'm sure whatever it is..."

"There's a whole bunch of problems," Derek interrupted. "And they all get back to one thing. You're a fuckup. First of all, there's this gun business you run on the side, which we've actually known about for quite a while. It's risky, and it's stupid, and it's a liability to us because if you get caught selling illegal full auto weapons, it brings the Feds to your door. We've looked the other way so far because, well, if you were an honest upstanding citizen you wouldn't be any use to us, and your shipping business is good cover for a lot of stuff. The guns are cheap and low class, but, like I say, we put up with it so far.

"But then the Boss Lady, who's down in Virginia for a Christmas party at the House gets a call from those shitweasels we keep on speed dial for members if they get picked up. Dickson Waterhouse, remember them? Well, it turns out that a couple of little sociopaths tried to kill an FBI agent named Mike Weston yesterday. You've heard of Mike Weston right?"

Harvey sat there dumbly, feeling the approach of doom.

"Right?," Derek repeated. "Do you read the news, Harv? Do you get past the sports page? Just nod. Indicate that you heard me."

Harvey nodded, afraid to speak.

"Ok, so Weston drills one of them, and takes the other one alive. And the little gerbil calls Dickson Waterhouse. Turns out that he's part of some kind of serial killer group operating in the New York City area, and he got the name Dickson Waterhouse from the leader of his group, one Kyle Richmond, serial killer and serial fuckup. Like father, like son, Harv. A real chip off the old block. And old man Dickson puts up a distress rocket. He calls the Boss Lady, who calls me, gets me out of bed and tells me get my ass up here and fix it. What was Kyle doing here this morning anyway?"

"I...I didn't..."

"Didn't what, Harv?"

"I didn't know he was here. It must have been while I was asleep. Why do you say he was here?"

"Because we have people on the inside. Little Kyle knew enough to turn his cell phone off, but he didn't know enough to take the battery and the SIM card out. So one of our people switched it on remotely and tracked his GPS. Right to your door. I called him and told him to leave, because I didn't want the FBI finding him here until we'd had a chance to sterilize the place."***

"Sterilize?"

"Anything incriminating. And don't worry about the video cameras you have on this place. The lines are cut, and we have signal jammers, so the video feed isn't going anywhere. And we'll take the hard drive when we leave, along with any other hard drives we find here. We're very thorough."

"I swear, I didn't know anything about any of this. Please. I have no idea how he got that name, but I didn't tell him."

"Where's your bracelet?"

"My bracelet?"

"Your bracelet. Which we told you never to lose. I need to collect it."

"I... Why do you need that? I haven't done anything. Look, just let me talk to Eliza. I can explain. I can straighten this out."

"Bracelet, Harv."

"Please don't expel me from the Organization. If I could just talk to Eliza..."

Understanding dawned on Derek's face. "Kyle has the bracelet, doesn't he?"

"No. No he doesn't, I swear I haven't lost it. I just need to hold on to it."

"Lying makes it worse, you know. When you lie, I have to make you talk. And I've worked on guys a lot tougher than you. Now make it easy on yourself, and just admit that Kyle has the bracelet."

"He has it. He took it from the safe in my study. He got the combination, and took it."

"Was there money in the safe?" Derek asked.

"Yes."

"Ok, so he came back for the money. He going to make a run for it, and he needs money."

One of the men walked into the room. "Sir, we got the hard drive out of his desktop, and we have his laptop and his phone. Is there a safe?"

"Yeah, Derek replied. "Harvey will show you where it is, I'm sure. And he'll give you the combination. Keep an eye on him, and get that information while I make a phone call." He started walking towards the foyer. "I suggest you cooperate," he said to Harvey on the way out.

In the Foyer, Derek placed his gun on a table and took a blackberry out of his coat pocket and placed an encrypted call.

"Tell me you have this under control," Eliza said.

"I'm at Richmond's house. The kid's on the run, with a bunch of stolen money and that fucking bracelet. He may be headed for the House."

"If he gets here, he's mine."

"He won't get there. I didn't want him taken in his Dad's place before we had a chance to go through it, and I didn't want him taken anywhere near the House. I phoned in an anonymous tip from a burner. The Feebs should be closing in on his location about now."

"Oh that's just great. You call the FBI and send them right to him. And he has a bracelet."

"If they take him, he's got no solid proof. He could have got that bracelet anywhere. Maybe he could tell them a story, but he's got no hard evidence, and anyway he won't talk immediately, he'll try to make some sort of deal. If I try to take him on the move and something goes wrong, we have an incident that can't be explained away. This way, maybe the FBI lights him up and if they do get him alive...didn't you tell me we have some gang bangers on payroll who can get to guys in jail?"

"We do. What about Harvey Richmond?"

"He's cooperated so far. He wants to speak to you. I think he wants to ask if you can get him off for old time's sake."

" Make it look like suicide or something if you can."

'I'm afraid it's too late for that, I had to do the maid. But I talked to some of his guys, and he's got a weapons deal going down later. Some guy named Victor Mallinson. Wants to buy some black rifles with a fun switch. We can have his people waste Mallinson when he shows, and later, we can make it look like this was some kind of business dispute. We might have to do a couple of the guys in Harv's gun business, but I think we can make it look like two totally separate deals. Everyone ends up dead, and we stay in the background."

There was moment of silence on the other end of the line. "Sounds acceptable to me," she said at last.

"Acceptable? C'mon. Admit it. I rock. When I get back, we can stand under the mistletoe and talk about my Christmas bonus."

"Count yourself lucky you aren't getting a lump of coal for insolence. I'm flying in tomorrow night. Be at my office at 9:30 the next morning."

"Looking forward to it, Boss Lady."

He disconnected, put the Blackberry back in his pocket, and picked up his gun. He turned back towards the family room to find Harvey coming back down the stairs with a man behind him holding a gun on him. "In there," he said to Harvey, pointing at the family room.

Harvey complied, and Derek followed him, keeping him covered. "Sit," Derek said, pointing at the couch.

"I am so, so sorry," Harvey pleaded. "I know I screwed up. Give me another chance. I'll make this right. I will. Let me talk to Kyle. I can talk him down. Don't kill us, OK? I can talk him down, I can get him to turn himself in to Eliza. He wanted inside. He wanted to be in the Organization, and look at what he's done. He could be useful. I can still be useful. Just give me another chance. You could get Kyle out of the country. Get him a new identity. And as for me, I will never, ever go behind Eliza's back again. I've learned my lesson. I swear."

"Harv," Derek said, "I understand how it is. I do. And I appreciate your cooperation. And it is almost Christmas. Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men, and all that shit. And sometimes, at Christmas, you just have to give a guy a break. But not this time." He fired six shots into Harvey, the last shot going between his eyes. "Pick up all the spent brass," he said to the other man. "Don't leave anything behind." while the man obeyed his order, he unscrewed the silencer from his pistol, put it in his pocket, and slipped the gun into a holster inside his waistband.

When the last of the spent cartridge casings was picked up, and the other men were all out of the house, he stopped to take a last look around. He looked at Harvey, his corpse half sitting, half lying on the couch, his lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. Blood covered his sweat suit and was spreading across the upholstery. He stepped carefully around Juanita, lying in the foyer, her blood pooling on the carpet. "Merry Christmas to all," he said. "And to all, a good night."

He stepped outside, closed the front door behind him, and made his way to the waiting Stimpson Plumbing van.

X

Kyle had given some thought to the question of his route to Virginia. Magena Reservoir ran north to south, and cut across the state line between New York and the Connecticut panhandle. Normally if traveling from his Dad's to the university or to New York City he drove south of it. But he didn't want to travel his usual rout with the FBI on his trail. So even though time was probably against him, he decided to take a long detour around magena reservoir to the north. It was far out of his way, but once he got around the reservoir, he could turn west, make his way to a major highway, and head south. So north on Whiteridge and then left on Stirling Hill Road. He wasn't likely to meet much traffic. He kept his speed down to just below the limit, not wanting to be stopped.

Whiteridge was two lane, and mostly no passing, though fairly straight. The few houses he could see were well back from the road. The country around him was mostly wooded. A mile, and then another, and then he was crossing the state line into New York. The entrance to a country club was on his right. This was still a pretty upscale area. Another mile. Almost to his turn.

There was a T intersection ahead, and a service station on the left. That would be Stirling. He slowed to a stop, and turned left. The service station was open, and a few cars could be seen parked in front, but the bay doors were closed against the winter cold. He turned onto Stirling, and headed west. The small township ofBanner was just ahead, and the speed limit dropped from 45 to 40. He checked his speed, and made sure he was below the limit. As he looked up from his speedometer, he noticed the blue light in his rear view mirror. A black SUV. It had been sitting in the parking lot of the service station.

He wasn't speeding, his license plate wasn't expired. The Voice had said they were looking for him, and they knew what kind of car he drove. That was why he was being pulled. He applied the brake, and eased over to the narrow shoulder of the road.

XI

Trooper Noah Cardwell stepped out of his vehicle and cautiously approached the Beamer that he had just pulled. The driver's side window was rolling down in an apparent show of cooperation. He walked Slowly towards the Beamer, his hand near his gun. As he neared the car, the door opened fast, and the driver came out of the car with a pistol in his right hand.. Noah went for his gun, but it was a lifetime too late. The driver fired from a crouch.

XII

Kyle let the trooper get some distance from his car before making his move. He didn't want the officer taking cover behind his car. He had a Taurus G2c in his right hand. Twelve shots, and he knew the trooper would havea vest on. A head shot would be tough to make, even for an expert, which Kyle knew he wasn't. So aim low.

He practically rolled out of the car, dropping to one knee and bring the Taurus up in a two handed grip. He fired one shot. The trooper staggered, but Kyle wasn't sure if he'd hit the man's vest. He drew a steady ai, and squeezed off three more shots.

XIII

Noah felt the impact of the first shot on his vest just as his hand gripped the butt of his pistol. He felt a sharp pain where he's been hit, and wondered if the bullet had gone through his vest. He managed to thumb the retention snap on the holster open just as more shots were fired. Another shot hit his vest, and a third shot his left arm above the elbow. The pain dropped him to his knees. He managed to get his gun out, but couldn't take a two handed grip because his left arm wasn't responding to commands from his brain. He managed to get off two wild shots, but realized he had no cover. He hit the dirt, trying to present a smaller target and rolled to his right. His opponent's field of fire was limited by the BMW he crouched beside. If he could move to the right, Noah might get himself out of the line of fire.

XIV

Kyle saw the trooper go down, fired two more shots as he rolled, and then began advancing, hoping to finish the man off before he could radio for help. He took a few steps forward, reaching the rear of his car, and fired another string of shots at the prone figure who lay bleeding in the snow. He didn't hit the trooper, but now the man was stationary, and Kyle carefully drew a bead on him, intending to make the next shot count. He squeezed the trigger, and ...nothing. Because the gun was empty. He hadn't even noticed that the slide was locked back. Fuck.

A bullet whizzed by Kyle's ear, diverting his attention away from his empty gun, The officer was down, but not out. Kyle had a spare magazine, but wasn't going to stand here and get shot trying to reload. Time to leave. Kyle turned to run back to the car. As he did, he noticed that there was a bullet hole in the back window. He jumped into the car, his heart in his mouth, hearing another shot behind him. He floored it and sped off.

XV

Max's phone rang again. Shelby. "Max Hardy," she said, as she connected.

"We're getting reports of shots fired and an officer down," Shelby said. The suspect vehicle is westbound on Stirling. "I'm getting HRT revved up in case you need them."

"Copy," Max replied. "We're almost there." She reached for the dash and turned on the blue lights on their unmarked car. "He's shot an officer," she said to Dennis. "Push it."

"Aye Captain," Dennis said, in a bad imitation of a Scottish accent. "I'll give you everything she's got."

Ahead was a service station on the left, and the road forked three ways, left, right, and center as it intersected with Stirling Hill Road. Dennis abruptly braked, sending the car into a skid. Inertia took them sideways into the center of the fork, and they found themselves stopped in the middle of Stirling facing west. Max wondered if Dennis was that good or that lucky.

 _Lucky I hope, because lucky beats good._

They picked up speed, and short distance down the road passed Highway Patrol car and a Sheriff's Department car on the shoulder of the road. A man was lying in the snow with an officer checking him. "Don't stop," Max said tersely. Dennis didn't slow down. The downed officer was either being helped, or he was beyond mortal aid.

The small township of Banner was just ahead. There were more houses now, two story frame affairs. The two lane road curved to the left. Dennis took the curve as fast as he dared, and when the road straightened out again, they saw up ahead of them a silver BMW. "That's him!" she exclaimed, pointing. The Beamer increased speed, trying to escape the pursuing blue lights. "What do you think?" Dennis asked. "He's headed for a town."

Max stared at the fleeing BMW. _Traffic's light, but a high speed pursuit through a town is risky. So is letting him escape._ "Go," she said.

XVI

Kyle weighed his options. He had, at best, minutes to lose the car behind him before it summoned backup, but even if he could get away, the damage to his car would be a dead giveaway on the road. He needed another car. Banner was just ahead. Maybe he could pull off a carjacking. The road would fork just ahead. The left hand fork would take him to the highway, the right hand fork would take him into a small cluster of shops. He could turn right and then pull over to the left. His car would then give him some cover and then he could fire a few shots to discourage pursuit and try to lose them on foot. With luck, he might even be able to grab another car. The plan flashed through his mind in an instant.

The odds of success, he realized, weren't promising, but it was the only game in town.

XVII

"He's turning," Max said, as the BMW turned into the right fork. Dennis didn't answer. His attention was riveted on the road. They could hear a horn blasting up ahead. Kyle had cut in front of someone. As they turned down the same road Kyle had taken they saw a yellow SPEED BUMP sign. Before she could say anything, they hit the bump at speed well above the legal limit. The shock rearranged Max's internal organs, and she could hear the muffler scrape against the speed bump. She recovered from the shock in time to realize that they were drifting to the left on the curve, and that a blue city pickup truck was in the lane ahead of them. Dennis cut the wheels into the skid, recovered, and pit the car back in the right lane as they missed the pickup with inches to spare. Max glanced over at Dennis, focused on the Beamer.

 _That wasn't lucky, that was good._

They had turned into what passed for a downtown, a cluster of red brick and white wood buildings along a narrow street. The BMW was pulling over in front of a post office. Was he giving up?

No. He was out, and taking aim at them from behind his car. "Stop!" she yelled, but Dennis was ahead of her, and braking to a halt in the middle of the road. The car had not quite stopped as she threw her door open. She heard the sharp crack of a 9mm as she released her seat belt and dove out of the car, reaching for her Glock. She took cover behind the passenger door. It wouldn't stop a bullet, but it made her a smaller target, at least. She looked at the BMW. Kyle was behind it, crouching behind the front of the car. Behind him was the post office, which wouldn't be open at this hour of the morning. So there wasn't anyone behind him and the brick walls of the building would make a good backstop for her bullets. So maybe she could end this here...

She fired off four shots as fast as she could pull the trigger. She hit the car, but apparently not Kyle, who turned at fled on foot. "Come on!" she shouted at Dennis, and instantly took off in pursuit.

In the distance, she could hear sirens. From the way he was running, Kyle had heard them too. They ran past a wine shop and a real estate office, both of them closed. Kyle was turning to the left ahead of them.

XVIII

A one way street connected to the whatever the main street of this miserable backwater was called. And stopped at the intersection was a white KIA that had seen better days. Kyle made for it. His way out, if he could get to it before the driver pulled out into the road.

The driver, a middle aged woman with dark hair, was talking on the cell phone. He needed the car, but with Hardy and that fucking slopehead on his ass, he didn't have time to run around the car and drag this bitch's's fat ass out of it. He reached the car, grabbed for the passenger side door, and yanked it open. He jumped into the car, ignoring the woman behind the wheel, and pointed the Taurus one handed toward the pursuing agents and let fly with three shots. They they both dove for cover behind the corner of a red brick antique store. They couldn't return fire now, not with this fatass bitch in the car sitting just behind him.

The fatass bitch was screaming in his ear, terrified. He needed to get her ass out of the car and go, but that meant getting out and running around the car, or levering his body across the gear shift and the brake handle after the woman got out. And the sirens were getting closer. Looking down the street, he could see a blue light rounding the curve from the direction he'd come. If he pulled out into the road, he'd be seen immediately. The road this fat bitch's car was on was one way. So if he went backwards...

He pointed the gun at the bitch. "Back up!" he yelled. "Back up! Back this fucking thing up!"

The terrified woman sat transfixed by the 9mm in her face. He turned it aside and struck her across the face with it, hard enough to get the point across. "Do it, bitch, or I'll fucking kill you!"

The woman threw the car in gear and began backing. "Faster, bitch!" Kyle yelled.

Too late. Another blue light was turning in approaching from behind him.

Kyle had a hostage, but he was cut off, and the FBI was closing in. But he still had one last card to play.

XIX

Max peered around the corner of the building. The car Kyle had gotten into had backed down the one way street, and she could no longer see it. "Let's go," she said to Dennis, and took off running.

A Sheriff's Department car was pulling into position to block the one lane road ahead of them. Max holstered her pistol and pulled ut her FBI badge. She wasn't wearing a raid jacket and didn't want to be shot by mistake. A uniformed deputy got out and put up his hand in a stop motion.

"Miss, you can't..."

"Hardy, FBI," she interrupted, flashing her badge. "Was that you I saw up the road?"

"Yeah," the Deputy answered. "This trooper," he pointed at the man in his front seat, "was shot."

Max looked in the passenger seat and saw a Highway Patrol trooper holding what looked like a jacket around his left arm. Blood was soaking through it, and the man was in obvious pain.

"He wanted to come along," the Deputy said, apologetically. "He didn't want the guy getting away. The guy's down there." he pointed down the road, and Max could see the Kia, and beyond it, another patrol car.

"He hasn't gotten out?" she asked.

"No."

"Get an ambulance for this man," she said. "And backup. I'll call this in the Bureau. We can get more people out here. HRT if we need them." She studied the Kia, carefully. "Why doesn't he get out and run?" she asked.

"Run where?" Dennis replied. "Maybe he's willing to negotiate."

She reached for her phone and called the Command Center. "It's Max Hardy. Put Shelby on the line."

"What's going on?" Shelby asked a moment later.

"We've got him surrounded. Banner Township. He's got a hostage. He may want to negotiate. How long for HRT?"

"Forty-five minutes by chopper."

"He shot a state trooper," Max said. "He fired at the two of us. He may want to negotiate, he may want to surrender, or he may refuse to be taken alive. What are our orders?"

"You're the agent on the scene," Shelby answered. "Use your discretion. You're authorized to negotiate. You're authorized to attempt a rescue."

"Understood," she said, and disconnected.

"Call our other people," she said to Dennis. "Get 'em here. Let's make sure he hasn't got a way out."

"Do we wait for HRT?" Dennis asked.

"HRT can't help us now. They could snipe him, but he'll have that woman under the gun. But I have an idea."

XX

Ryan carefully made a final check of his gear, strewn across the coffee table in the small apartment he had rented. He'd have his 9mm M&P pistol and a .380 SIG that could easily fit into a pocket. He'd need to take Harvey alive, so he had a taser and zip ties as well. He checked his watch. Plenty of time. His phone rang, and fished it out of his trousers pocket. Kelso.

"Hey," Ryan said into the phone as he connected. "I kind of took your advice."

"I know."

"You do?"

"Yeah. You called 'em and postponed 24 hours. I'm surprised you did that."

"I thought about it," Ryan replied. "I decided I could wait a day. But they weren't too happy about it."

"I know. They called me. Asked what was going on."

"Called you?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah. A while ago. I got a call from one of Harvey's guys that I know, and he put someone on I didn't know. The guy was asking about you. How we met. I told him about how you were doing straw gun purchases down South and I'd bought from you. Something about it kind of made me nervous."

"What do you mean?"

"It bugs me that they're asking about you. Like they're having second thoughts. Maybe you ought to call this off."

"I can't."

"I didn't think you would. Good luck, then."

"Thanks."

Ryan disconnected, and sat down on the couch, staring at his equipment, lost in thought.

""Something's gone wrong, you know," Joe said.

Ryan sat wordlessly, ignoring the dead man sitting beside him.

"So I take it there's no turning back," Joe continued. "I suppose you must be eager for our reunion."

"Don't flatter yourself," Ryan said, a faint smile on his face. He reached down, and picked up a black plastic remote with a single red button. He studied itcarefully, and set it back down on the table. "I put a lot into this. I'll play it out. If Harvey shows, I'll get him. If he doesn't, I'll get his men. Whatever happens, I'll get someone. And it's all good."

Musical Interlude - Dirt On The Grave by Black Label Society

================ Notes ===============

* Max's disarm technique wasn't actually Kung Fu. I assume that Max, as part of her police and FBI training, was trained in combatives, which is a catchall term for hand to hand combat. Videos of her moves can be seen on YouTube. One is called "Fake Gun Disarming Videos on the Internet and What you REALLY Need To Know" featuring an instructor named Ryan Hoover. The other is How To Defend Against Gun From The Rear Krav Maga Defense Krav Maga is an Israeli martial art that has found increasing acceptance in America because its emphasis is on practical and effective techniques, not the often nonfunctional katas common in many American dojos.

** Many readers may be unaware that gas stations are not evenly distributed in the United States. In the Southeast, for example, you're never really far from one, but in the Northeast, they can be few and far between. I mapped Kyle's intended and actual routs, although place names have been altered.

*** Cell phones have become surveillance devices in all but name. They can be turned on remotely, and the microphones in them can be activated remotely and used for eavesdropping. In theory, the American government needs a warrant to use these capabilities to carry out surveillance on American citizens. In theory.

About Derek

Readers of Terudom will remember Derek, but for the benefit of anyone who may have come to this fic without reading at least part of Terudom first, he's an Organization hit man who reports to Eliza. His full backstory is given in Chapter 11, "We're Not In The Bureau Anymore"

The End Is Coming - I Swear

I'm not good at estimating how much longer it will take to complete a fic, and really should stop. The last chapter and the denouement is coming. While I intended to put the balance of the fic up all at once, but I my work schedule got rearranged, and it affected my writing time. I decided to put this up now, and the rest as soon as I can.

25


	8. Christmas Wishes Don't Always Come True

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

So here it is. The finale. I told myself long ago that I wasn't going to be finishing a Christmas fic in the middle of summer, but here we are. Well, hopefully my readers, if any will forgive me.

Chapter 8 - Christmas Wishes Don't Always Come True

Mike cautiously peered around the door to Gwen's room to see if she was asleep. She wasn't, nor was the tiny infant she held in her arms.

"Come on in," Gwen said quietly.

"Can I bring you anything?" he asked, as he stepped in.

"No, I'm good." The remains of her breakfast sat on a tray by the bedside. A bowl that had held some kind of hot cereal sat on a tray by the bedside between an empty juice glass and her Kindle.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, as he sat down in a recliner by the bedside.

"I'm OK. A little sore." She looked at her son, who was staring up at Mike. "He looks like Ryan."

"Maybe. A little. I mean, I don't know what Ryan looked like at that age..."

"Neither do I," she laughed, "But trust me. There's a resemblance."

'Well, he's got a healthy set of lungs anyway."

"Yeah, well...You were just thinking about Ryan weren't you?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded. "How did you know?"

"Oh, I can tell. I was thinking about him too."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?"

"I can't imagine what it's like for you right now."

"We can't control what life does to us," Gwen said. "Only how we deal with it.. That was something Ryan never understood.. I don't think any of you did."

"I understand it now," Mike assured her. "I kind of had to learn it the hard way, but I did learn."

"How's Max?"

"I texted her. I also called Command and got an update. It's a hostage standoff now. And it could go on for a while. She's got her hands full. Shelby's sending the troops."

"You wish he was sending you," Gwen said softly.

"I'm where I need to be," he replied. " Besides, I wouldn't be any good to her right now. Just like I wasn't any good to Ryan..." he let the thought trail off.

"Ryan would be very proud of you right now. You've been wonderful these last few days."

"Thanks."

"I think he likes you," Gwen said. "He keeps looking at you."

'"Can I get a picture?" Mike asked. "To send Max."

"Sure."

He reached into his jeans pocket for his phone. "She really wanted to be here."

"I know. She'll get here when she can."

He snapped a picture of Gwen and Ryan, and began attaching it to a text.

'A little reminder," he said, "That she needs to be careful." He tried to make it sound as if he were making a joke, but he couldn't quite pull it off.

II

By now more police had arrived, with roadblocks at both ends of the street and officers had cordoned off the area well enough that there was no danger of Kyle somehow slipping away. There were Sheriff's Deputies, Highway Patrol, and FBI agents who had been pulled from the watch on Harvey Richmond's house. Just beyond the police cordon the media was beginning to swarm. A news helicopter could be heard in the distance.

An impromptu command post had been set up by a Sheriff's Department van parked on the next street over, in front of a flower shop with a window full of potted poinsettias. A sign in the window said Delivering Your Emotions. Another sign on the door promised Flowers With Impact. Max took stock of her emotions, and decided that nothing in that store was likely to deliver enough impact to express them. She looked at the knot of uniformed officers and FBI agents gathered around her. Flashing an FBI badge had pretty much put her in charge, at least until Shelby arrived, which he was likely to do along with HRT. In the meantime, he'd told her to use her discretion.

"Are you sure about this?" Kenya Welles asked. She stood by the rear door of the van with a pump action Remington slung over her shoulder.

"Yes," Max answered. "He'll talk to me. He went to a lot of trouble to meet me, even if this wasn't exactly how he planned it. He'll negotiate with me, and I might be the only one he'll listen to."

"I say let HRT do him," Kenya said. "They can make it a head shot."

"They won't have a shot for a while," Max replied. "Look at that car. The morning sun is reflecting off the glass. They won't be able to see in unless he rolls the windows down, and he won't do that unless someone is talking to him."

"Ok, so wait for HRT, get him talking, and then if he won't surrender they can take the shot", Kenya argued.

"No," Max said. "He's got a hostage under the gun. Even on a brain shot, there's no guarantee. Snipers are no good here. I have to talk to him, and I need to do it before he decides that he won't be taken alive. Everybody clear on what we're gonna do?"

Kenya didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't argue, and there were nods and murmurs of assent from the group.

"Let's move," Max ordered.

The group began to disperse, and Dennis walked along with her towards the intersection where the Kia had been parked when Kyle seized it.

"I'll always back you up," Dennis said quietly when they were out of earshot. "You know that, right? But this guy was serious about wasting you. Maybe what he really wants now is a chance to take you with him."

"Maybe. But I have to try. He'll at least me walk up on him."

"We could wait. Play for time. HRT has guys that can hit a rat's ass at a thousand yards. .The Sun gets a little higher, we don't have glare on the windows, he gets tired and drops his guard."

"No. I need him alive."

"If this goes to shit, it could be your career, and that's assuming you survive. I know you're a good person, and you don't like violence. I know you don't want to kill someone you don't have to. But are you really doing this because you think it's the right call, or because of what he said about Ryan's unfinished business? Are you gonna roll these dice because you hope he knows something about Ryan?"

Max stared silently at the Kia for a moment, her breath fogging in the morning cold. "Be there when I need you," she said, and began walking forward, slowly, her hands held out away from her sides.

"Count on it," Dennis replied.

III

Kyle looked around at the Blue lights in front and behind him. The police were keeping a respectful distance, but both ends of the street were securely blocked. There were a few small shops on the street that weren't open yet, but he had no doubt that there were officers on the parallel streets, and behind the nearby buildings. No getting out by car. No getting out on foot. He could take his lardbeest of a hostage with him, she'd provide plenty of cover, but she couldn't move anything like fast enough, and where would he go anyway? There was no sign that the cops were about to rush him, but they had time. Like a starfish that had attached itself to an oyster, they weren't going anywhere. And neither was he.

He wondered how long they'd wait before they tried to negotiate. And he was pretty sure they'd try to negotiate. They might be waiting for reinforcements or an FBI sniper team, but he felt certain they'd try to talk. He had a hostage, after all. And while Mike Weston had a rep for excessive force, he wasn't likely to be involved in this. The FBI might be willing to execute him on the spot, especially if they knew who he was. The Organization had moles. If they had his name, one of them might give a go order to the snipers and screw the land whale sitting next to him. But they probably didn't have his name. Unless someone had ratted him out.

The ideal scenario would be if Max Hardy showed up. She wasn't like Ryan or Mike Weston, at least as far as anyone knew. Of course, she might be pissed about last night. But she probably wasn't pissed off enough to waste him on the spot.

"Why are you doing this?"

The question had come from the chubber in the driver's seat. He looked around at her. He'd kept the gun pointed at her while he scanned the area. He looked around at her with irritation. "What's your name, sweetness?" he asked.

"Heather."

"Heather what?"

"Heather Peterson."

'Well, Heather, I'm doing this because I was out for a drive, and they noticed that my tags were expired."

"Please let me go. If you let me go, they won't hurt you."

He grabbed her by the hair, pulled her head toward him, and shoved the gun into her face, the muzzle close to her mouth. She tried to tuen her head away, and he gripped her hair tight enough to cause her pain.

"You know, Heather, I once read an article about what to do if you're on a plane that gets hijacked. And they said one of the worst things you can ever do is try ro reason with the hijackers, or ingratiate yourself with them. Because you never know, really, what their agenda is, and if you say the wrong thing you can end up pissing them off. Then who knows? Maybe they kill you just because they just want to see that look on your face."

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "Please don't kill me."

Kyle released her and let her pull away from him. No good giving the cops the idea he might actually kill her. Then they'd snipe him or swarm him. He looked around again, to reassure himself that they either hadn't seen, or hadn't been panicked into action.

He looked back at Heather, thinking that he should have had a better looking hostage. Joe Carroll would have taken someone prettier. He wouldn't even have considered Heather as a victim. Probably none of the guys would have, except maybe Crenshaw. Well, he'd never been lucky with women anyway. He'd been too nice for too long. He'd come close to having it all, though, and when guys read about what he'd done to the bitches he took, they'd always wonder, in the back of their minds, what it was like. This might be the end of the road, but he could live with the knowledge that he'd set an example to follow.

Kyle thought for a moment about what might have been. If only he'd actually got Max Hardy. He knew he was famous already, or would be, but if he'd got her... Then he'd be a legend. He imagined, briefly, how it would have been. The screwdriver, heated over a propane torch, the red hot blade pressing into her flesh...

His reverie was interrupted by the sight of someone walking towards the car from the roadblock ahead. Someone wearing an FBI raid jacket, jeans, and a black watch cap. A woman, he realized, with dark hair pinned up...

Holy shit. Max Hardy.

She walked slowly forward, her hands held away from her sides. He raid jacket was zipped all the way up, so if she was wearing a gun under it she couldn't get to it quickly. She was wearing boots with the jeans tucked inside them. He didn't see a pistol protruding from the top of a boot, but that meant nothing. After last night, he was prepared to believe that she had a hidden arsenal that could be deployed in a split second. And, he reflected sourly, he'd learned she didn't have to be armed to be dangerous. But she wants to talk...

Max walked up the passenger side of the car, her hands still away from her body. Kyle pulled Heather by the hair again and brought the gun closer to her head.

"Roll the window down," Max said loudly.

Rolling the window down would mean using one of his hands. "Do it," he snarled at Heather. She fumbled with the switches on the driver's side door for a moment, and the window began to come down.

"All the way," Max said. "I want to talk to her."

"Do it," Kyle said to Heather. Rolling down the window might be something of a risk, but he needed to talk to Max, and that meant showing her that the hostage OK. Besides, keeping the window up might be interpreted as showing fear.

And besides, he wanted to get a close look at her.

Max stood by the passenger side door, and for a moment, Kyle wondered if she'd lean in to talk to Heather, maybe close enough to grab. No, that was too much to hope for. She was close, arms length, but he had the Taurus in his right hand and couldn't possibly make a grab for her.

"Hi Kyle," she said. "Nice to meet you."

So the bitch knew his name. "Hi Max. Nice to meet you too. So who ratted me out? Or did Mikey get physical?"

"Now you know I can't tell you that. I need to talk to her," she said, nodding slightly towards Heather.

Kyle Heather closer by her hair and put the muzzle of his gun right on her head. "So talk already," he growled.

"Ma'am, are you Ok? Has he hurt you?"

"No," Heather sobbed.

"What's you name?"

"Heather"

"Heather, it' OK. Just do what he says, it'll be all right."

"No it fucking won't," Kyle countered.

"No one has to get hurt," Max replied. "We can talk about this."

"He eased off the pressure on Heather's hair and let her lean back. He kept the gun on her.

"So you're here to negotiate?"

"That's right. No one's gonna get hurt. Not you, not her. You can just let her go. It's gonna be all right."

"Let her go? You mean, you're like, offering yourself in her place.? Because it looks to me like I do need a hostage."

"No you don't. Besides, I think I should tell you up front that there's two things we never negotiate. One is hostages and the other is weapons. Other than that, we can talk about anything."

"So if I want, say, a million dollars and a helicopter..."

Max flashed him the kind of smile women use when they're cheating on their boyfriends. "Sure," she said cheerfully. "What color would you like that helicopter to be?"

"God damn," he laughed. "You're a piece of work."

'I could say the same about you."

"So what really, are we gonna negotiate about?"

" Mostly whether you want to call your lawyer from the lockup or the ER."

" You're pretty cocksure of yourself. Maybe I'll just refuse to go to prison."

" I don't think that's what you want. I think there's things you want to tell the world. About your Manifesto. About what you've done, and why. And I think there's things you want to tell me."

"Like?"

"Ryan's unfinished business."

"Maybe I was just talking shit."

"Oh, I'm sure you talk shit all the time. But not that time."

"You know, if Ryan was still around, they'd have assigned him to this case."

"They would have. Sorry, but I'm what you've got. So you're saying You and Ellion were Ryan's unfinished business?"

"Among other things. Ryan was known for investigating serial killers."

"Like you and your crew."

"Like me and my crew. Except it goes way beyond that."

"You have my undivided attention."

"I have proof."

"Of what?"

"Of just how much Ryan never found."

Kyle tightened his grip on Heather's hair, and she whimpered. He wanted to pull out the bracelet and show it to Max to pique her interest, but it would have meant releasing his grip on her. No way.

"As in more serial killers?"

"Uh huh."

"Ok, so here's what we can do. You can tell me all about it. We'll sit down and talk. You can give me the names of your other guys. And any other names you might happen to have. You can do yourself some good here. You can stay out of supermax. We'll see more of each other. I'll handle the debriefing personally. You can tell me all about it. How you organized all this. How you did it. Why you did it. Because what you did is impressive. I know because I've seen the best. You have names. You have lots to tell. Come on. We're all cold and tired. No one else has to get hurt. Just let her go. Please. I'll listen to what you have to say. I promise. Just you and me."

She sounded sincere, Kyle thought. He could let Heather's fat ass go, surrender, and then tell what he knew. He had the bracelet. He wouldn't exactly be a hero. But he'd struck a blow at the system. Now he could tell Max about the Organization. Hell of a note. He'd be like Joe Carroll. They could sit in the cell, and he could tell her about the great serial killer organization.

He eased his grip on Heather, and pulled the gun back, holding it lower on his body. He looked at Max, thinking that she was beautiful, with that faint smile on her face, and he imagined telling her the story, all of it. What he'd done. Why he had to do it. And what the Organization was still doing, and she'd be impressed with what he knew...

And then he realized. She wouldn't be impressed at all. And he'd sit in his cell, hoping for her visits, for any attention he got from her, dragging everything out as long as possible, and he'd just be feeding her ego, like all the stuck up attention whores, and in the end she'd have what she wanted, and he'd sit in a cell forever while she laughed at him. _So fuck it..._

He pulled viciously on the fat bitch's hair, intending to do her and then Max and then as many as he could. He turned his face towards Heather to put the bullet right in her fucking brain and moved to bring the gun right up to her temple, but as he was bringing the Taurus up Max's hand was on his right wrist, and he realized the mistake he's made taking his eyes off her for an instant. Then both her hands were on him, one on his gun and one on his wrist and she had a grip like an animal trap, and she was pulling his gun away from Heather.

He released Heather's hair and reflexively tried to bring his left hand around to pull his gun back away from Max, but as he did he heard a loud thump as someone jumped onto the hood of his car, and there was another FBI bitch with a shotgun leveled at his head through the windshield. He heard voices shouting on the other side of the car, and the sound of window glass being shattered by something heavy, and he could hear Heather screaming. Someone had come up behind Max and another pair of hands was grabbing at him. That fucking Jap Moffet had brained. The doors unlocked. They had smashed the driver's side window to get at the locks and he was being dragged out of the car, and he no longer had a gun.

He tried to struggle, but the Jap had his arm and was twisting it like pretzel up between his shoulder blades. More hands appeared, and FBI agents were swarming him like a football team piling on a downed running back. He was being shoved face down on the freezing pavement, and he could feel cuffs being snapped on to his wrists.

IV

They could hear the sound of a flight of choppers overhead as they walked back to the van.

"That would be the cavalry," Dennis said. "Looks like they're gonna set down next that elementary school."

"Yeah. I hope Shelby's not pissed because I didn't wait."

"He won't be. Remember what I said about what the Masters have attained. Ryan couldn't have done it better."

"Yeah. Well...I do want to have a talk with Kyle later."

"I want you to remember something. That guy is a grade A sociopath. He's a user, and a liar, and he'll do anything to get your attention. Whatever he said about Ryan, I doubt it's true. Just lies to rope you in. He was obsessed. With you, with being famous, and he wanted to hurt everyone he blamed for his own failures, and that's a long damn list. You did your job. Don't reward him with your time and attention, and above all don't let him be in your head. Walk away."

She stopped for a moment and gazed the phalanx of officers and agents that were hustling Kyle away, one of them carrying the trucker's axe they'd used to smash the window. As she did, Kyle turned his head and looked back towards her. She tried to read his expression. Longing maybe, or regret.

"I need to call Mike," she said.

Dennis nodded, and resumed walking towards the van. She pulled out her phone. "Mike? It's over. It's finally over, and I love you, and I'm coming home."

V

The small office at Harvey's warehouse had an electric heat strip at floor level with the controls locked to prevent anyone from turning th heat high enough to ever be anthing like comfortable. Since the place had poor insulation, that meant that it was miserable this early in the morning, before the Sun was fully up. The four men who sat around the office were bundled against the cold. But the men outside, watching for the arrival of Victor Mallinson, would have cheerfully traded places with the men in the office, for they were colder still.

One of the men, who sported a slim moustache and had olive skin, sat behind one of the two large desks in the office, a massive hardwood desk badly scratched by decades of use and piled high with paper. His attention was riveted on the phone in his hand, on which he was playing a video game that emitted occasional beeps, toots, and buzzing noises. He merited an old wooden swivel chair with the vinyl upholstery missing in spots, revealing the bare foam rubber underneath. It creaked badly whenever he moved, even louder than the game he was playing.

The others, clearly his juniors in rank, had to make do with hard metal folding chairs, arranged in a semicircle around the fourth man's desk, trying to get as close as possible to the inadequate heat strip. The man with the video game was closest to it, of course, further proof of his higher status.

"So what, exactly, did they tell you about this Victor Mallinson dude?" one of the other men asked. His question met with no response while the video game made some enthusiastic beeping noises. Clearly something important had just happened. , because the beeping was followed by a series of buzzes, and the gamer gave a slight smile.

"Hey, Gustavo," the man said again."I said what did they tell you?"

The beeping stopped and Gustavo looked up at his questioner as if noticing him for the first time. "They said waste him."

"They say why?"

"Nope. You don't question an order from these people. I know this guy, he came to see me. He brought people with him. He said that this sale was not to go down, that someone higher up wanted Harvey Richmond out of business for good, and they're gonna see that happens. I don't know what kind of beef Harvey had with the higher ups, but if you knew these people like I do, you'd know that what they say goes.

"So when he gets here, he goes for a ride. After we get the money."

"We're giving it to them?"

"No, " Gustavo replied. "We divvy that up. As far as anyone else is concerned, he tried to stiff us. Look, Harvey Richmond ain't coming back to collect his money. So we'll collect it for him. Because I think we deserve it."

"So why don't these other people do this themselves?"

"Because they're kind of busy right now with other things. Harvey, for one. You ask too many questions."

A handheld radio on the desk came to life. "He's here. Looks like he's alone."

Gustavo picjed up the radio and answered. "Good. Keep a lookout." He set the radio down and stood up. "Let's do this, he said.

They filed out into the main area of the mostly empty warehouse. Along one wall of the cavernous space there was a row of pallets. Some held what looked like short pieces of large gauge pipe. Others held crates. Everything was tied down securely for shipping. Two forklifts sat by the opposite wall near the rollup door to the loading dock. There was no heat at all out here, and their breath fogged in the morning cold. The windows showed that it was dawn outside. Most places weren't yet open for business, and neither was this warehouse.

Not legal business anyway.

Near the back wall, about ten feet from the office door, sat a hard plastic folding table about four feet long, with a stack of boxes behind it. These supposedly contained the automatic rifles Victor Mallinson was here to buy. They were, in fact, empty, because Mallinson would leaving without his money or his merchandise, locked in the trunk of a car.

Gustavo and his men stood around the table, waiting for Mallinson to walk in.

VI

Ryan parked his car in the lot outside. There were several other cars present, more than he would normally expect before business hours. So there was a sizable contingent of men waiting for him, more than should be needed for simple security. Not good. He reached into his pocket and took out a small black plastic device, about the size of a TV remote, with a single large red button. He pressed the button once. Nothing happened. Then he opened the glove compartment and put the device inside. Next he reached into the back seat and retrieved a briefcase. He got out of the car and began walking towards the door with the briefcase in his left hand.

He stepped inside and found a reception committee waiting in a folding table on the far wall. He walked slowly towards it, careful not make sudden movements. These guys were bound to be nervous, and the last thing he wanted to do was to startle them.

Ryan gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he walked up to the table, but no else seemed to be smiling. There were four of them in all, and no doubt more on the premises. _I might just be in over my head here._ "I have the money," Ryan said. "Where's Harvey?"

"He couldn't make it," Gustavo replied. "Family emergency. Put the case on the table."

Ryan carefully placed the case on the table, and stepped away from it. "Nothing serious I hope."

"Actually I'm afraid it was."

Two of the men drew semiautos and held them on Ryan, while a third stepped forward to frisk him. Gustavo turned to face the table and opened the latches on the case.

"What's this?" Ryan asked, as the man reached inside his coat and pulled the big 9mm Smith & Wesson from the holster inside Ryan's waistband.

As the man pulled Ryan's pistol away from his body, holding it by the back of the slide, Gustavo opened the briefcase. There was an orange flash, a blast like a gunshot, and Gustavo staggered back.

The man holding Ryan's gun didn't have his hand on the butt and couldn't use it, so Ryan started with the man to his left who did have a pistol within grabbing distance. Ryan stepped back to get the muzzle of the gun off his body and grabbed his gun arm with his right hand while his left pressing on the man's upper arm, bending it backwards until the elbow broke with a sickening crack. His gun discharged as his hand convulsed from the agony, and the bullet caught the man holding Ryan's gun in his pelvis. He toppled over onto the dirty wood floor, his leg no longer able to support him.

Ryan pried the gun from the injured man's hand and brought it to bear on the next gunman, who by now had recovered from his shock well enough to be turning his gun towards Ryan. They fired at the same instant. Ryan's shot hit the gunman in the chest, dead center. The gunman must have still been startled enough to jerk the trigger instead of squeezing it, because his shot went way low and to the left, what instructors call a Baja California hit. Ryan felt white hot pain in his side and realized that the slug must have been a cop killer. It had ripped through his vest and caught him low on the right side. His next three shots weren't as well aimed because of the pain and shock, but one of them hit low on the man's neck, and he dropped, blood gushing onto the floor.

By now Gustavo had turned and was fumbling to get his gun out of the holster. Ryan put a round between his eyes that left a splatter of blood and brains on the back wall where the round had exited the back of his head. There might be more men waiting for him between here and the car, so he scooped up his Smith & Wesson from the floor. He had reloads for that. But the sound of the gunfire had apparently spooked any of Harvey's goons who might have been left into leaving before the cops showed. Ryan knew just how they felt, and made a dash to the car.

He knew he needed medical help. The ER wasn't an option. Neither was trying to doctor himself, it was too bad for that. Even if it had been , there was no way to get what he'd need. He couldn't steal what he needed from a doctor's office or a hospital while leaving a blood trail. There was only one place he could go now, and he had to listen while Joe bitched about having bloody warned him every mile of the way.

VII

Max's promise to come home couldn't be kept until after debrief and a ton of paperwork. Shelby had stuck her and Dennis on a chopper and flown them back to New York City to handle all of the administrative drudgery. Shelby had sat there and watched while they got worked over by a debriefing team headed by Nick Donovan, who had managed to get himself on a plane from Washington in time to be in on the action, or at least the bureaucratic clean up afterwards.

Donovan did most of the talking, and saved his heaviest fire for Max. Why had she followed Hegstrom into Kyle Richmond's trap? Why didn't she wait for backup before arresting Hegstrom? Why didn't she wait for HRT before negotiating with Kyle Richmond, who was blocked in and not going anywhere? Why do a risky takedown at all? Who the hell did she think she was giving that kind of an order with less than two years experience on the job?

That last one prompted Shelby to intervene and say that agent Hardy had acted within his orders and she had his complete confidence. There followed an exchange about Shelby's confidence possibly having been misplaced misplaced and t too much authority being delegated to a fairly junior agent that ended with Shelby saying that it was his call, and Donovan could take this shit up with Associate Director Mahoney. Max found herself, a few minutes later, walking back to her cubicle thinking that she probably still had a job , and thinking of some replies she'd like to have given Donovan that would likely have ended in a change of careers.

She was back in her cubicle, logging off the computer and she and Dennis were preparing to leave when John DiPaulo walked in with a big, thick manila envelope in his hand. "Word came down a little while ago," John said. They're about to bust Vince Warfield. I got Kelso's alias documents, and someone needs to deliver them. Time for him to disappear."

"So deliver them," Dennis said.

" I'm busy."

"With?" Dennis asked.

"I got some form 302s to finish."

"Ok," Dennis replied disgustedly, holding out his hand. "I'll take 'em."

"No," Max interjected. "Give them to me."

"No way," Dennis said. "You need to..."

"Yes, way. You promised Chelsea that you'd meet her at Karlino's tonight."

"And you promised Mike..."

"I want this," Max said with finality. "I ran him, and I want to...well, I want to hand him his new life and say good-bye."

Dennis shook his head in disbelief. "That's not the real reason."

"Guys," John said, placing the envelope on Max's desk, "I'm gonna leave these here. You two can flip a coin, or arm wrestle, or whatever." He sat down at his desk and began logging into his terminal.

Max picked up the envelope and began walking towards the elevator.

VIII

Kelso lived in the Fieldston neighborhood, where crime rates were sometimes described as being surprisingly low for the Bronx. Technically Kelso was contributing to the crime rate just by living there, but his kind of crime didn't get noticed in a way that would lower the neighborhood's reputation.

But the best thing about Kelso's two story brick house on this pleasant tree lined road wasn't the safe streets or the good schools. It was his indoor garage, which meant that Ryan could pull in and get out of his car without the whole street seeing a man in bloody clothes walking up to Kelso's door.

Kelso knew a lot of people, and one of the people he knew was Jeremy Abbot, a former Navy Corpsman and veteran of Iraq who had gotten himself into debt shortly after his discharge. He'd eventually gone to work for Kelso and some of Kelso's business associates, who sometimes had injuries they did not feel like explaining at the ER. He never botherd asking any of his patients if they had insurance, and even made house calls. Jeremy Abbot had, on a long rectangular dining table in Kelso's basement, removed the bullet that had penetrated Ryan's vest and lodged itself in a shallow wound along Ryan's side. The wound channel had bled, but the bullet could be removed and the wound sewn up.

Jeremy had given Ryan a shot of morphine for the pain before setting to work while reassuring him that it wasn't that bad. Ryan, for his part, had lain there thinking sourly that Jeremy had probably had a lot of practice telling wounded Marines that it wasn't as bad as it looked. But soon enough, a combination of exhaustion, morphine, and the knowledge that he was, for the moment at least, safe, combined to make coherent thought impossible.

Ryan had borne up well, and was now sitting on Kelso's living room couch, wearing one of Kelso's T shirts, a pair of baggy shorts that more or less fit, and a black bathrobe. He was pale, and pain and fatigue showed on his face. Jeremy offered him a bottle of pills from the medical bag he'd brought.

"Here," he said. "Fentanyl. You're gonna be sore for a while. You need to take things easy. This should heal up well enough, it's soft tissue damage. Back in the days they used to call this kind of thing a million dollar wound, because in Vietnam it would get you sent to the rear, but you weren't messed up for life."

"I can make it back to my place, " Ryan said. "And then I can rest for a few days."

"Well if you're getting on the road stay off the Fentanyl until you get wherever it is you're going. You have an accident on the way, and they're gonna notice."

Ryan nodded wordlessly, and accepted the bottle.

"I would also suggest," Jeremy continued, "that you stay here for twelve hours until the morphine is out of your system. Stay off the road at least that long. You understand?"

Ryan nodded again.

"Let me see you for a second," Kelso said to Jeremy, and they stepped out the room, leaving Ryan alone for a few minutes. When Kelso returned, he was alone.

" This would a great time to say I told you so," Kelso said.

"Try to deny yourself"

"I know you haven't seen the news, so I might as well tell you, Harvey's dead. Somebody wasted him in his house a little before you had your mishap. And his son got busted by the FBI. Apparently he was running some kind of serial killer cult. I don't really know what's going on, but it looks like maybe the kid got on the FBI's radar and the Organization decided to just kill everybody and erase any possible links to them. Including you, since you were doing business with Harvey. They're nothing if not thorough."

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. I've got some money. I can pay you. For Jeremy, I mean. If anything happens. If I've screwed things up for you, I know a guy who does fake ID. I can get you papers.."

" Ryan," Kelso interrupted. "It's cool. I'm gonna be out of here soon enough. They're probably busting Vince Warfield as we speak. And I don't think the Organization will come for me, There's enough dead bodies to explain as it is. Drink?"

"You should know better than to mix morphine and alcohol. And I quit. For good."

Kelso sat down in a recliner facing the TV. "Shit. This is a date that will live in infamy."

"I have found new purpose in life."

"I doubt that. You just got better at the old one. Word is there's four guys dead at that warehouse. That was you? By your lonesome?"

"Yeah."

"Christ. How did you do four guys?"

"I bought a fart machine."

"The fuck.?"

"Yeah. See, the way it works is you have a remote, and you put the fart machine under a seat cushion, and when they sit down you push the fart button on the remote, and it makes a fart sound. Sort of a digital whoopie cushion."

"I know what it is."

"I just wanted the circuit board out of the fart machine. I wired it to another circuit board out of an electronic bug zapper. That thing puts out 15,000 volts, low amps of course, and that detonated the gunpowder from a couple of nine mil cartridges. I put it in a briefcase, which I trip wired, and then right before the meet I hit the fart button, and that energizes everything. They open the briefcase to get the money, it closes the circuit and boom. Very distracting. Then I just had to be quick. "

Kelso began laughing silently and then out loud. "So what's next? Exploding cigars, except with Semtex?"

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Ryan replied, and began laughing himself.

The laughter was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.

"Who's that?" Ryan asked.

"Probably your niece."

Ryan stopped laughing and stared at Kelso in mute horror.

"She texted me a while ago. She's bringing me my alias documents. I'm on my way out."

"Are you insane? And you let her come here?"

"Why not?"

"What do you mean why not? Because I'm supposed to be dead, that's why not. "

"What was I supposed to do, tell her to wait because her vigilante uncle was bleeding all over my basement? Hide. She's not gonna search the place."

Ryan heaved himself up from the couch, surprised at how heavy his limbs had become. He looked around uncertain of where to go. "Down there," Kelso said, pointing. "There's a bedroom on the right, I mostly use it to store stuff."

Ryan found himself in what might have been a child's bedroom at one time, with pink painted walls, and someone had painted pictures of Bo Peep and Humpty Dumpty on them. There were boxes everywhere and no furniture. Kelso must have been boxing up his stuff for the move. Ryan closed the door most of the way and listened. He could hear the front door close, and a moment later voices coming from the den.

"I saw you on the news this morning," Kelso was saying. "The news guys actually got you grabbing that gun. You're famous."

"It's overrated", Max replied. "That and a buck seventy five will get me a cup of coffee. Anyway, I just wanted to give you this. And thank you."

"Yeah. So I guess this is good-bye."

"I guess it is. Have a great life."

"Max, you too."

"Well, before I go," Max said, "there is one other thing."

"What?"

"I wanted to ask you something. About Ryan. See, the night he fell into the river, he was acting weird."

"In what way?"

"I don't know. He told me that there was never going to be an end to all the violence and insanity."

"Judging by the news this morning, I'd have to say he was right."

"Yeah, well...it was also when he told me he was going to be a father. I mean, he wasn't acting like he was happy. More like, I don't know. Like he was scared."

"Becoming a father can be a scary thing. Take it from me."

"Not the same thing. At least I don't think so. Something was wrong. Something had happened. I don't know what. And I wondered if maybe he'd contacted you."

"Why are you bringing this up now?"

"Because there was this guy. A serial killer. I finally get him cornered, and he tells me that he was Ryan's unfinished business. And I'm wondering what the hell that was, and if it had anything to do with that night."

"The last time I heard from Ryan," Kelso said, "was a little over a year ago. He was working the investigation on Vince Warfield. I think you'd just joined the Bureau. But he got pulled off the case, oh, I don't know, maybe November. We lost touch. I never heard from him after that. Why are you bringing this up, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I don't know. Something was wrong. And I thought that if he wouldn't tell me what it was, then maybe he contacted someone else. And I know you two had worked together. I just wondered if he might have called you about whatever was bothering him before he fell..."

"That word again. Fall. He's dead."

"No bodies. They never found anything, and there were a lot of loose ends. I've wondered ever since what was wrong. What he was upset about."

"I think maybe he was scared and upset because he was going to be a father and he wasn't sure how he'd protect his family."

"Maybe. You know his son was born this morning. I haven't even seen him yet. I've been kind of busy. His name is Ryan. And he's gonna grow up never knowing his father. I can't stop thinking about that night. I want to know what really happened."

"I don't know," Kelso said. "But whatever happened, he's gone and you can't change it. I don't know what happened. I saw it all on the news. I think towards the end Ryan just lost his way. I know you miss him. I miss him too. I wish to God we could have him back. But we can't. My advice is go home. I know there's people waiting for you. Spend Christmas with the living. Not searching for the dead."

A long silence. "Yeah, " she said at last. "Thanks. Well, I'm going to go meet my new cousin. And we're all going to help raise him. Merry Christmas."

"And to you."

Ryan stood there, suddenly aware that he weak as a kitten and there was no place to sit. He leaned back against the wall for support, and carefully lowered himself to floor. He didn't hear Max leave, but she must have left because Kelso found him still sitting on the floor , back to the wall, and his head in his hands.

"She's gone," Kelso said. "Can you stand? Come on I'll help you. You can go lie down for a while." Somewhat to his surprise, Ryan found himself on his feet, leaning on Kelso, and being guided back to the couch. "You want anything?" Kelso asked. Ryan shook his head. "Well, I'll go get you some Gatorade or something. There's not much in the kitchen, but I'll see what I've got and if you like I can order some take out. You should eat."

Ryan sat there, not answering, staring at the floor. "I'm sorry it didn't work out for you," Kelso said. "I guess Christmas wishes don't always come true. They'll be OK. And you'll keep trying. Maybe next year."

IX

When Mike got the text from Max announcing that she was almost there, he stationed himself in the lounge by the elevators down the hall from Gwen's room and waited impatiently for Max to appear, keeping the elevators under observation through the window of the lounge.

When she stepped off the elevator, he met her in the hall, and she launched her self into his arms, the warmth of her face contrasting with the chill that clung to her jacket and her hair. "Welcome back," he said. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." She seemed on the edge of tears.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry. I know I'm late."

"So how was Kelso?"

She looked up at him in surprise.

"I got a text from Dennis," he explained. "He said that's where you were."

"Dennis ratted on me?"

"He didn't want us to worry when you were late."

"I took him his alias documents," she explained.

"It wasn't about the damn documents."

"No", she admitted. "It wasn't. I wanted to ask him about Ryan. If he'd been in contact before..."

"Yeah. And he hadn't."

"No. I'm sorry. He's going away and I had to ask."

"It's OK. You really should have told me, but I think I understand."

"Thank you. I should have told you.."

"So," Mike said. " Do you want to go meet him?"

She broke out into a radiant smile that was no less beautiful for the bruise on her cheek. "Yes. I do."

"Come on then"

The room door was ajar, and Max stepped inside to find Gwen holding her new son. She "Is this Ryan Junior?" Max asked.

"This," Gwen said proudly, "Is Ryan Michael Carter."

"May I?"

"Of course?"

Max gently took Ryan in her arms and held him close. Mike took out his phone and got a picture. It was a profile shot that obscured the bruise Max had on her cheek. Mike watched as she rocked her infant cousin in her arms and imagined the day when the child she held in her arms would be their own. He set the picture as his phone's wallpaper, and slipped it back into his pocket.

"Ryan Michael Carter, huh?"

"Yeah," Mike said. "I kind of like it."

"I think I do too."

Mike stepped behind her, and gently put his arms around her and held her close. "I know from experience, " he said softly. "The first Christmas is hard. But we've got a lot to celebrate this year."

X

Ryan finally made it back to his safe house in the predawn hours. He wanted nothing quite so much as a couple of Fentanyl and a few hours sleep, but he was also run down and weak, and he decided to eat first. A search of the refrigerator yielded up a frozen pepperoni pizza and some Pellegrino water. It wasn't much trouble to heat up the pizza. The crust was like cardboard and the pepperoni and the cheese were both sparse. He swallowed about half of it whole, popped some Fentanyl, and reflected that if there was any booze in the place, his sobriety might end right here.

He went over a list mentally of what he had to do. Get rid of that car, for one thing. Ditch this Victor Mallinson alias for another, since the Organization might possibly be looking for that guy. For that matter, maybe the FBI would be too, when someone got around to investigating that warehouse shootout. And lose that Smith, since he'd used it in a shootout.

"Here to gloat?" he asked, when he saw Joe standing there.

"Not at all. I'm actually rather proud of you. Four on one, and you walk away victorious, if a bit worse for wear. But I did caution you that this wouldn't end well."

"I had to try."

"I suppose so. But you knew what you were getting into. And I don't just mean the shootout. It's a battle. The war goes on, and I suppose there'll be another day. But you knew, when you became like me, that guys like us can't ever count on too many happy endings. You may yet prove to be the exception. But not this time."

Ryan decided that Joe's chatter was even more tiresome than ususal, or maybe the Fentanyl was kicking in. He nodded his agreement, and lay down on the couch, imagining the Christmas with his family that he was going to miss.

He rolled over onto his side. The position really wasn't comfortable, but he didn't want Joe to see him cry before he drifted off to sleep.

Musical Interlude - Red Water (Christmas Mourning) by Type O Negative

==============Notes================

I swore a mighty oath before I set down to write Following fanfics that I was never going to teach you maniacs how to wire a bomb, and I believe that technically I've kept my word. I believe the old MacGyver TV show had a rule that when Mac put together anything that could really be used in a dangerous way, they always left out a step or two to keep anyone from doing the same thing in real life. Yes, the Fart Machine is real, and you actually can use the circuit board out of one to activate something remotely. However, I left enough details out of Ryan's gadget to keep you from actually getting yourselves into trouble.

Readers of Terudom may recall the picture Mike took of Max holding little Ryan and the role it played in that story. So I had to have him take the picture in the name of consistency. Readers may also notice that Max's arrival at the hospital is described in Terudom, but the details are not entirely consistent. The excuse is that I never knew, when I wrote Terudom, that I would write anything else. But I enjoyed it so much that I have now written two prequels to it. But it simply wasn't possible to retroactively fit the events of A Kinder Light to Terudom, and I have no plans to go back and edit Terudom for consistency. It is what it is.

23


	9. Epilogue - Unfinished Business

Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Epilogue - Unfinished Business

Mike, Max, and Dennis sat in chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of Dan Shelby's desk while he pored over the contents of a manila folder.

"Washington wants to write a happy ending to this story," Shelby said, looking up from the folder in front of him. "One that doesn't include a Joe Carroll style resurrection. But there's some questions. First, how did this happen?"

"It was easy," Dennis answered. "These guys wanted something that everybody wants and they didn't have it. So they went looking for an answer, and Kyle Richmond sold them one."

"It can't be that simple," Shelby said.

"If you want to," Dennis replied, "you can get BAU to dress it up in a profile that talks about anger towards women, entitlement issues, deficient social skills or whatever. But it really is just that simple. Kyle Richmond wasn't the first guy who sold a bunch of people on blaming someone else for their problems instead of fixing them. The hell of it is, if they had put this amount of effort into improving themselves they could have been sleeping with supermodels. Kyle had his own agenda. They didn't see that."

"Next question," Shelby said. "How did they do it? How did Kyle manage this operation?"

"They used burners," Mike answered, "But that starts to run into money after a while. Some of it was email. They had some throwaway gmail accounts with a login password held in common. They could log in, write a draft message , and leave it for someone else who logged in with the same username to read. No message would get sent, making a wiretap useless. We've got a list of addresses and we're going through them, but there's no real name attached to the logins, just a username that they shared. We can't prove who logged in when, and we don't have records of most of their messages."

"Kyle Richmond had a web site that he used to find recruits," Shelby said. "What about visitors to that web site?"

"There were a lot of those," Mike explained. "From what Hegstrom has told us, Kyle would identify people who posted on the message board who looked like possible recruits. He could make the initial pitch by private message or email, but the problem is that he was routing those messages through a bunch of Tor nodes. It's nearly impossible to trace a message sent through Tor software. So a person who got a message from Kyle couldn't trace his location. We've got Kyle's desktop, his laptop, his phone, every device he had that anyone knows about. We can't find a master list of members, and we can't find any record of messages that he sent."

"Then you don't have everything," Shelby argued. "There have to be other devices, right?" he paused, and getting no answer turned to Max. "Right?"

She shrugged. "If there was anything else it was hidden. Or removed."

"Removed by whom?" Shelby asked.

"Maybe by whoever removed Kyle Richmond," she said.

"Kyle Richmond hanged himself in jail," Shelby pointed out

"He might have had help," Max answered.

"The report says otherwise."

"Do you believe everything you read in a report?" she asked.

"Far from it," Shelby replied. "Something that agents who report to me would do well to keep in mind. But in this case, if Kyle Richmond did have help, well...no one's found anything. And we have looked."

"And Harvey Richmond?" she asked.

"There's four guys dead at that warehouse, and the old man was apparently involved in the illegal gun trade. ATF thinks he may have been involved in what they call the Iron River - the flow of illegal guns to Mexico to arm the cartels. Maybe a deal went bad. Someone got double crossed."

Max held up a copy of a report. "The lab says the flash bang in that briefcase was wired with a circuit card taken from a..." she looked at the report, "fart machine. Not the kind of thing we normally see from the Cartels."

"Maybe we should out an all points on the Joker," Dennis suggested.

Shelby looked up from the folder in his hand at Dennis. "I make all the jokes around here," he said. "Who tipped off Moffett?"

"He says he got it from a guy in Administration," Dennis replied. "Moffett claims he was asking around, trying to find out what records the Bureau might have accessed. The Admin guy denies it. We haven't sorted it out yet. The Admin guy may actually get fired, the University is worried about lawsuits, but there's no proof that he actually told Moffett anything. So there's no question of any criminal charges."

Shelby turned to Max. "So which one do you believe?"

"I think Moffett's covering for someone," she said. "But we may never know who."

"What about the mob at that auto scrap yard?" Shelby asked.

"Melissa Canning wasn't the only victim Phil Hegstrom hacked," Dennis replied. "We found video of Melissa Canning on his computer, but we also found video of a woman named Ivy Klapowicz. She represented Foley's ex-wife in his divorce. With video of two murdered women on his computer, Hegstrom geeked and gave up the other members of his group. Who just happen to be the other guys at Foley's shop that night, and he says that's all the names he's got."

"Kyle Richmond was the only one who knew the names of all the members," Mike explained. "And he kept everything compartmented. Like Strauss. That's their story, and they're sticking to it."

"So the big question," Shelby said, "is did we get 'em all?"

Mike, Max, and Dennis sat silently in their chairs, looking like Final Jeopardy contestants unsure of their answer.

"Anyone," Shelby goaded.

"There's no way of knowing for sure," Mike replied. "But I wouldn't bet the rent money on it."

"But we've got everyone we know about, right?" Shelby asked. "And the group, if it does still exist, is decapitated."

"Harvey Richmond had to know," Max said. "Melissa Canning was killed in his house."

"But he was on a business trip when that happened," Mike replied. "He has an alibi."

"Who soundproofed that room, and when, and why?" she argued. "There are some fairly huge loose ends here. Washington might want a happy ending, but I'm not happy, and I doubt very much that this is an ending. And the only man who could have written the ending is dead, in police custody, and apparently no one saw it happen."

"Washington will write the ending here," Shelby said. "And the good news is that they're writing a happy ending for the two of you, at least. That hostage rescue made for must see TV, and the fact that Weston was guarding a pregnant woman while they were stalking him has people wondering if they might just have gone after Doctor Carter. So Weston, you still have a job, but I gotta tell you that you're running out of last chances."

Max and Mike exchanged glances. "Thank you sir," Mike said. "I know you went to bat for me, and I swear..."

"Don't tell me," Shelby interrupted. "Show me. So, to get back to the original question, did we get all of them? Is it over?"

"It'll never be over," Max said. "Kyle Richmond brewed up some very toxic Kool Ade, and we don't know who else drank it. And I never got to ask the only man who did."

"I know you wanted to debrief Kyle Richmond," Shelby began. "But he..."

"Debrief him?" Max interrupted. "I would have turned him inside out. And while I was at it I would have sweated his old man, too."

Shelby regarded Max silently for a long moment before answering. "I see a lot of Ryan in you," he said. "And I mean that in the best possible way. But I can't forget that Ryan lost focus more than once because he let a sick, sadistic, brilliant serial killer get under his skin. And I don't believe for one second that anything Kyle ever said about unfinished business was on the level. So maybe in the end, things have a way of working out for the best. And on that cheerful note, well done. All of you."

II

Max and Mike walked through the underground parking deck towards their cars. "You sure you don't want me to come over to Gwen's with you?" Mike asked.

"No, it'll be just us girls. And the new man in our lives. You go with Dennis to the Christmas party. And don't get too jolly."

"I won't," he promised, grinning "So how are you?"

A slow smile spread across her face. "Definitely in a Christmas spirit. You're right. We do have a lot to celebrate. A new life. And our new life."

"No more unfinished business?" he asked.

"Lots of it," she said. "Including the whole rest of our lives."

III

 _Los Angeles - Christmas Morning_

Ryan checked the meat thermometer on his Christmas dinner, decided it wasn't quite time, and closed the oven door. He picked up a glass of ginger ale on the kitchen cabinet, took an appreciative sip, and carried it back to the living rom where a football game was on TV. His phone, which was in the pocket of his jeans, beeped to announce a text. He read the message, a smile spreading on his face as he did so.

"You seem remarkably cheerful," Joe said from the other end of the couch. "Is that roast beast you have in the oven?"

"Prime rib."

"As long as you don't start singing that awful Christmas song like the little Whos."

"I don't know...You'd make a pretty good Grinch."

"Dr Seuss wasn't exactly my Christmas favorite."

"I suppose not. Who was?"

"Was that text from that woman?" Joe asked. "Jill Mallory?"

"Yes"

"You're actually going through with this after what happened."

"I think she can get me an introduction. Maybe I can take the Organization down from the inside."

"Not bloody likely."

'So who was your favorite Christmas writer? I don't think Poe ever did much with Christmas"

"Actually H P Lovecraft. The Festival is a wonderfully macabre Christmas tale"

"So your favorite Christmas story is actually horror? Figures."

"He wrote other things as well. There was a Christmas poem. He wrote poetry you know. A sappy little piece of doggerel called Christmas"

"I'll look it up," Ryan said.

."Maybe that's the way to think of it. Christmas, I mean. Something saccharine that can turn nasty and awful in a moment. What do you think?"

Ryan thought for a moment. "I'm glad that you're like Marley. Dead as a doornail."

"How do you manage to be so cheerful today, Ryan? Your plan failed. You were injured. Your loved ones still think you dead."

"Because," Ryan said, "I did what I did to keep them safe. I know they're making for themselves a Merry Christmas. And as long as I know that, I can have a Merry Christmas too. I can't be there this year. But one day I will be."

"If only in your dreams."

CHRISTMAS

By H. P. Lovecraft

The cottage hearth beams warm and bright,

The candles gaily glow;

The stars emit a kinder light

Above the drifted snow.

Down from the sky a magic steals

To glad the passing year,

And belfries sing with joyous peals,

For Christmastide is here!

Musical Fadeout - Thank God It's Christmas by Dusty Hughes

===========Notes============

ATF is short for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. It's the agency charged with enforcing Federal gun laws in America. With the possible exception of the ATF itself, no one uses the full acronym.

The use of throwaway email addresses and unsent draft messages has been used as a means of covert communications online. Before you use it for anything illegal keep in mind that all online communications are coming under increasing surveillance - not all of it legal -by increasingly powerful arrays of computers.

Readers of Terudom will recognize Jill Mallory and know how Ryan's plan to infiltrate the Organization worked out.

7


End file.
